Sunny Leone says she tried to walk out of infamous 2016 TV interview, was hurt ‘nobody stopped it'

In a recent interaction, Sunny Leone has said that she felt very hurt by her infamous 2016 TV interview and almost walked out in the middle of it.

Sunny Leone has opened up on the controversial interview she was part of back in 2016 when she was subject to a barrage of inappropriate and sexist questions from a veteran journalist. Sunny, who later received a lot of public support, said in a recent interaction that she had been hurt how it all played out and particularly that nobody on that set thought to stop what was happening.

Sunny Leone.

Sunny had been interviewed by a veteran journalist for an English news channel in 2016. After the interview aired, many fans and industry insiders had criticised the interviewer for bullying Sunny and being insensitive towards her with sexist questions. They also applauded Sunny for maintaining her composure throughout the interview and ‘handling it like a professional’.

Recalling that incident and the public support she received afterwards, Sunny said in an interview with Bollywood Bubble, “These people hated me or said bad things about me for years and now someone bashes me on television. And now I am ok and now I am accepted. I was the same person before. So great that they recognise that ‘Hey I am a person’. But it really did hurt me.” Sunny added that eventually she did calm down and now she is “thankful to everybody who spoke up”.

The actor said that she even considered walking off the set at one point but then decided against it. “This was in the first 3-4 years of being here,” Sunny explained, “I thought I should observe respect if he is someone higher on the totem pole. And one should always respect their elders. So, I sat there. I wanted it to end. I almost got out of it. I was so close but then he said, ‘No no no, sit down’ so I said ok.”

Instead, the actor said she decided to confront the other people on the set as to why they didn’t intervene. “This was on multi-levels of feeling hurt. The biggest question afterwards - there were rows of chairs and people sitting in that room. I turn I go, ‘Did I do something to you people? Did I hurt you in any way? Did you not think it was okay to come and stop this?’ You’ve worked with these people for several years and not one person thought it was not right and they needed to stop this. Not one,” said Sunny.

Sunny is set to make her debut as lead actor in the Tamil and Malayalam industries through Veeramadevi and Rangeela this year. She will also be seen in Hindi films Helen and The Battle of Bhima Koregaon.