Bollywood actor Sonali Bendre was diagnosed with stage four metastatic cancer in 2018. The actor, who had, at the time, taken to social media to speak about her diagnosis, revealed that several people misinterpreted her openness as a publicity stunt. At a recent interaction in Bengaluru, Sonali recalled, “When I shared the news, people asked me if I was doing it for publicity. Because, you know, when you’re an actor everything is looked at as, ‘They wanted publicity’.”

“But, everyone has their own way of living,” Sonali explained. “That’s why I started speaking about my diagnosis. While some questioned my openness, there was a news report showing a significant increase in testing rates after I shared my story on social media. Even today, many women tell me they were tested and detected cancer early because of the action they took after learning about my experience,” she said. Excerpts from the interaction:

Sonali shared that being open about her diagnosis was her way of taking control of her own story. “I didn’t mean to be so public about my cancer diagnosis. I was filming a reality show when I received the news. Initially, I thought I could take a brief two-week break, have the cancer removed, and return. However, it wasn’t an early stage; it was much more advanced. Then, just three days after my diagnosis, I had to travel abroad. We were also in the era of social media, where information spreads rapidly. I wanted to prevent gossip from circulating. Someone needed to replace me on the show, and I didn’t want false stories to spread about a potential conflict or my being replaced. So, I shared my diagnosis on social media. And that’s the advantage of social media: I can communicate directly, in my own words, a luxury actors didn’t have before.”

Looking back, Sonali revealed that daily mantras helped her persevere through the ordeal. “When I was going through my journey, there were two hashtags that I really used. One was #OneDayAtATime and one was #SwitchOnTheSunshine. And I lived by that. Whenever I felt like, ‘Oh my God, this is too much to deal with’, I would just tell myself, ‘Okay, let me get through today and sleep. I will give up tomorrow. Let me go through today’. When the pain got too much, that’s what I would say. ‘I will not take this medication, which is such a problem from tomorrow, but let me just do it today’. And saying that, slowly the days passed and, suddenly I was six months past, nine months past, and so on. ‘One day at a time’ was my mantra for a long time.

Reflecting on the unique challenges faced by women, she said, “There was a point in time when I realized that I was pleasing my family and the people around me, and in doing so, I quite ignored myself. But, therapy taught me that self-love is very important. It was very difficult to start doing that because as women, we are so conditioned to put everybody else before us. It took me a lot of work to get over that, and I would also like to add that if you need help, then you should ask for help; there’s nothing wrong with that.”

Ready for a new chapter in her career, the actor added that she now desires roles that authentically embrace her age. “When you talk about playing your age, you only get a certain type of roles that come your way. Either you are too glamorous in high society or it becomes kind of a caricature. I wanted to avoid returning to those kind of roles and instead, pursue roles that resonated with my current stage of life. It took a little time for me to find what I wanted to do. A couple of great roles did come up, but they were very dark.”

Reflecting on the emotional toll of dark roles and her commitment to healing, she explained, “I think I’m better at compartmentalizing than a lot of other actors, but still it seeps into your life. And I’m healing. I don’t think I want to live with this darkness.”

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