Neelam Kothari on being picked on for her ‘twang’ accent: 'I don't care, it's inherent'

Neelam Kothari admitted that she does get picked on for her accent with people asking why it has not changed despite her living in Mumbai for so many years.

Neelam Kothari has finally answered the numerous questions regarding her accent, stressing that it is inherent. Neelam's accent has grabbed attention all throughout her acting career and continued to be a topic of discussion even after she quit the film industry. Many have asked questions about how she picked up the unique way of speaking, which sounds like a mixture of a variety of accents. Her distinct accent became the talk of the town once again when she appeared in Netflix's reality show Fabulous Lives of Bollywood Wives in November 2020.

Neelam Kothari in a still from Fabulous Lives of Bollywood Wives. The actor has said that she has been often picked on for her accent.

Neelam recently admitted that she does get picked on for her accent with people asking why it has not changed despite her living in Mumbai for so many years. However, she noted that she does not care about these comments as her accent is inherent and not something that bothers her.

In a conversation with Pinkvilla for the Woman Up series, Neelam explained how she caught her "twang" accent. She said, "I wasn’t born with this accent. In Hong Kong, I went to a British school. Then from Hong Kong, I moved to Bangkok, and then I went to an American school. So that’s why people say where she gets this accent from. It’s a twang. It’s a mix of American, British I mean."

 

The actor pointed out that the way she speaks has been the same since the early days of her acting career. She said, "So, have I been picked? I mean people have picked on me. They have said you know ‘oh the accent is still you know with her after so many years.’ I mean it's just an inherent thing. Now if you watch my interviews you know back in the 80s and if you watch my interviews today, I think I speak the same way. I don’t care. Honestly, I don’t care because it is something which I mean... you know, it's inherent.”

Neelam was last seen on the Netflix reality show Fabulous Lives of Bollywood Wives with Maheep Kapoor, Seema Khan, and Bhavana Pandey. The second season of the show is expected to stream sometime this year, although no official date has been announced yet.