Rhea Chakraborty on coping with ‘pain, anxiety, PTSD’ after Sushant’s death; Aamir Khan calls it ‘tragic’

In Pic: Rhea Chakraborty and Aamir Khan

Rhea Chakraborty has started a podcast where she invites actors from the industry and delves into deep conversations with them. The recent guest on Chakraborty's podcast was Aamir Khan. In the episode, Rhea opened up about her journey of coping with and coming out of the tragic death of her boyfriend and actor Sushant Singh Rajput in 2020. As Rhea discussed the tragic incident and its aftermath, Aamir Khan praised her for the courage she showed during the entire ordeal.

Aamir Khan Praises Rhea

When life took a dramatic turn, Rhea managed to stay strong and deal with everything with utmost maturity. Talking about it, Aamir shared, "What happened with you, I would call it a tragedy. The way your life changed after that, and the way you have shown patience and strength - you didn't lose hope or faith in yourself. We all can learn a lot from that. A person's morale breaks and gets crushed. You are starting your second chapter."

Rhea on coping with PTSD & Pain

After Aamir boosted her confidence, Rhea talked about how her Army upbringing helped her and said, "I think Army upbringing also makes a difference. Because you know life is tough. You have seen it from childhood that when Dad leaves, there's a possibility he may not come back. You are taught to fight and never give up. To always stay hopeful. It's just inherent in your DNA. No one can defeat you easily." Aamir Khan quipped, "You have shown remarkable courage and you should be proud."

The actress added, "It took me so long to start chapter 2 because I was healing all this while. There was pain, anxiety, PTSD, and whatnot. And grief has a veto power over everything else. You could be talking to someone, and you get engulfed by grief out of the blue. Those were some of the things, but today I feel that I have renewed energy. I feel like meeting people; my curiosity has been revived. There was no interest in knowing about others and their lives. There's depression conditioning your mind. After overcoming that, now I feel like the sun is rising again. I feel like doing new things."

Rhea's reason behind starting the podcast

Further, while explaining the real motivation behind having her own podcast, Rhea shared an incident when a podcaster called her, promising a safe space, and in turn made her feel worse. While sharing the incident, she said, "One of the biggest reasons why I started a podcast of my own was the fact that media went extreme with the whole episode. I tried to give interviews a couple of times, but I didn't feel good. I went on a podcast some time ago, and he promised me that ‘Come, we will talk as friends,' that person said, ‘I won't question you like a journalist, we are new media, we are podcasters,' but he made it all even worse for me. I didn't let him release that podcast. At least, in the case of traditional media, I know how they are going to approach things, and I go prepared. It was that day that I decided I want to create a safe space where I want to speak to people."

Rhea faced a media trial and a lot of backlash after Sushant's demise. The actress had to face public scrutiny, and that was the darkest phase of her life.