Natasha Coutinho (MUMBAI MIRROR; November 20, 2017)

Benafsha Soonawala had been in the eye of the storm ever since she entered the Bigg Boss house. She is dating fellow VJ Varun Sood but was seen getting close to co-contestant Priyank Sharma on the show. But now that she is out, Ben, as she is fondly called, is miffed by all the talk about Priyank and her. “It’s rubbish, we were just friends. I’m generally very physical, even hugging and kissing my girlfriends. When I told Priyank that I had feelings for him, the smirk on my face was a giveaway but no one caught on. I even told him later that I’d been joking but he continued to say I was his type and that he didn’t know how to handle the situation. Yes, we shared a bed once but that was because we had just had a fight. We fell asleep during the emotional reunion, and when I woke up, I returned to my own bed. It was all pure and innocent,” she asserts, in a Tsunami of words, going on to reiterate that they were nothing more than just friends.

“People are slut-shaming me for no reason.” She is quick to laud Varun for waiting for her to explain things to him despite being targeted himself. “People should think ten times before passing judgement. I was dignified through the journey,” she asserts, admitting that it feels terrible to be evicted. “The journey is incomplete, I could have done so much more. If I get a chance to go back again like Priyank, I will let karma take over.”

She agrees that she was quiet and almost went unnoticed in the first couple of weeks before she got involved in the game. “People were raising questions, trying to malign me, so I started giving it back to them. I would think 10 times before saying things on national TV because along with mine, other people’s reputation was also at stake. But at times things spiraled out of control, as it happened with Aakash. Though I apologized later, it would have destroyed me, had I not reacted,” she reasons, adding that she sees three potential winners in Shilpa Shinde, Hiten Tejwani and Vikas Gupta.