Ira Khan has said that she was sexually harassed at the age of 14, in a video that she shared on social media. She spoke about it while talking about various other topics like the divorce of her parents, Aamir Khan and Reena Dutta that happened in 2002, being privileged and how it affected her mental health. She said, “When I was 14, I was sexually harassed, abused. That was slightly an odd situation in the sense that I didn’t know what that person was doing and if they knew what they were doing. It wasn’t happening every day. So, it took me a year to be sure that they knew what they are doing and that is what they are doing. And immediately, I wrote my parents an email and I got myself out of that situation. Once I was out of that situation, I didn’t feel so bad anymore. I wasn’t scared. I felt like this is not happening to me anymore and it’s over. And I moved on and I let go. Ya, from time to time I would beat myself up about how silly I was that I let it happen and all that, but it was again not something that has scarred me for life.”

Talking about the strong support system she had, she said, “My family, my parents have always been there for me. They don’t put any pressure on us. I know that if anything were to happen, I could, without any hesitation, go to my parents.”

Ira also opened up about her parent’s divorce in the video. “When I was small, my parents got divorced. But that didn’t seem like something that would traumatise me because my parents’ divorce was amicable. They are friends, the whole family is still friends. We are not a broken family by any means,” she said.

She had recently posted a video talking about battling depression. Speaking about it further, she said that she would sleep a lot, but did not realise it. She would cry all the time without any reason and even cancel all her plans with her friends.

In the post that accompanied the video, she wrote, “I never spoke to anyone about anything because I assumed that my privilege meant I should handle my stuff on my own, or if there was something bigger, it would make people need a better answer than ‘I don't know’. It made me feel like I needed a better answer and until I had that answer, my feelings weren’t something I should bother anyone else with. No problem was big enough to ponder too long about.”

Ira said, “What would anyone do? I had everything. What would anyone say? I had said it all. I still think there’s a small part of me that thinks I’m making all this up, that I have nothing to feel bad about, that I’m not trying hard enough, that maybe I’m overreacting. Old habits die hard. It takes me feeling my worst to make myself believe that it’s bad enough to take seriously. And no matter how many things I have, how nice to me people are because of my dad, how nice to me people are because they love and care about me… if I feel a certain way, a certain not nice way, then how much can rationally trying to explain these things to myself do? Shouldn’t I instead get up and try and fix things? And if I can’t do that for myself ? Shouldn’t I ask for help?”