The South actress talks about how her character was misrepresented in the film inspired by the life of Silk Smitha...
Renuka Vyavahare (BOMBAY TIMES; February 2, 2019)

The upcoming biopic on South adult actress Shakeela, which features Richa Chadha in the lead, has been in the news for various reasons. While speaking to Bombay Times, the fiery actress revealed that the way her character was portrayed in Vidya Balan’s The Dirty Picture (2011; right) wasn’t accurate.

Incidentally, Shakeela’s first commercial success (Play Girls, 1995) featured her alongside Silk Smitha (left). She played Smitha’s younger sister in the adult film. Talking about her equation with Silk Smitha and the way it was portrayed in the film, Shakeela clarified that they were not rivals as was shown, nor did she dethrone Smitha as the adult film sensation.

In an exclusive conversation, Shakeela revealed, “I just want to clarify one thing. There’s no truth to the scene in The Dirty Picture, where I am portrayed as an opponent or rival to Smitha. Whatever they wrote in the script, it’s their thing. I don’t want to comment on that, but this line where Silk asks a girl who plays Shakeela, ‘Toh tum shakeela ho? Tum kabhi Silk nahi ban sakti’, was not true at all. I wasn’t her rival. My first film was with her, where I played her younger sister. Uske baad she passed away so I was never competing with her.”