Payal Ghosh Accuses Anurag Kashyap Of Sexual Harassment; Filmmaker Denies Charges

Mumbai: Actress Payal Ghosh has accused filmmaker Anurag Kashyap of sexual misconduct in her recent outburst. The actress wrote that Kashyap had forced himself onto her in an incident that took place in 2014.

Payal revealed that Kashyap was shooting for Bombay Velvet when the incident happened. First, she went to meet the director with her manager. “It was a good, positive meeting.” After that Kashyap had apparently called her at his house, cooked good food and offered it to her. “It was a nice meeting,” she told India Today.

Payal said the filmmaker again called her to his house. “In the second meeting, Anurag took me to his room and opened his clothes and tried to force me. I told him I am not comfortable right now, so he said everyone does all this. Slowly, slowly he came near me. He tried and failed and somehow I convinced him that I am not comfortable today. He tried but, as I said I am not comfortable, he said, ‘Okay. But the next time you come, be prepared.’ And I said okay sir and left his house. Later, he messaged me but I didn’t reply,” she said.

Asked why she has decided to speak now, the actress said, “I tried to say it before also, when the #MeToo movement had started, but my family and friends stopped me. ‘You can’t talk, your career will be spoiled,’ they told me. I posted about this also, tagging Anurag, but deleted it.”

However, Payal doesn’t have the screenshots of her chats with Kashyap. “I don’t have any screenshots as the incident happened in 2014.”

“It was like a baggage for me but now I am relieved that I said it. This thing came out when I was giving an interview regarding Sushant Singh Rajput’s death and drugs. So, I shared my experience in Bollywood,” she said.

However, the filmmaker has trashed all allegations made by the actress. He posted a series of tweets trashing all.

“What’s the matter, why it took so long to try to silence me. Despite being a woman, you have dragged the names of other women in an attempt to silence me. I will only say that the allegations are baseless.”

“I got married twice. If that is a crime, I accept it, and I have loved a lot, I accept that too. Whether it was for the first wife or the second one or any girlfriend or all the actresses I have worked with or the entire team of women that have worked with me or the women I have met alone or in public,” Kashyap tweeted.

Later, Kashyap termed this a political agenda after he ‘showed a mirror’ to Kangana Ranaut.

The filmmaker retweeted a tweet by Congress leader Pankhuri Pathak, wherein she claimed that the ‘small time’ actress who levelled the allegations is a fan of PM Modi and former BJP MP Paresh Rawal, insinuating that the same negates her allegations.

At around 2:45 am September 20, Kashyap tweeted again and said that more such attacks on him will happen soon, it is only the beginning.