Pakistani actress Mahira Khan, who is best known in India for her television shows and for starring opposite Shah Rukh Khan in Raees, spoke about the backlash that she and other Pakistani artistes received after the September 2016 Uri attacks and how that led to her being diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

Talking about the incident on a podcast, Mahira said, “It was unexpected. I’d finished the film (Raees), it was going just fine. Then suddenly this attack happens, and politically, everything gets… It’s always political, it’s always political. With India, it’s always political. But the fact that it would get this messy…”

Recalling the threats she faced, Mahira continued, “Constant tweets, constant… In fact, I would get calls, and very scary ones. The only thing I wanted was, okay fine, I can’t go to India to promote it, I can’t enjoy this, but I hope it releases in my country. Because I knew that people would rush to the cinemas to watch it, he’s (Shah Rukh Khan) loved here. That was heartbreaking. It brought on a very… The anxiety that I’ve always had inside me, the depression, it came to the surface.”

Mahira said she fainted because of an anxiety attack. “They’re like, ‘Get out of here’. And people at home are saying, ‘Why did you even go?’ I was being attacked from both sides, and that is the time when my faith broke a little. I developed severe anxiety, to the point that one day, I had a panic attack and fainted.” She added that she was eventually diagnosed with bipolar disorder (aka manic depression), and has been on medication for six to seven years.

“That year was rough. The same year Raees released was the same year the whole picture thing happened, and it broke me,” she said, apparently referring to when she was photographed smoking a cigarette with Ranbir Kapoor in New York in 2017.