Janhvi Kapoor has opened up about grief, emotional vulnerability, and the realities of growing up under intense public scrutiny, reflecting on her relationship with her late mother, Sridevi. In a conversation with podcast host Raj Shamani, she revisited painful memories from her mother’s life and shared: “I have seen that journey. People were not very kind when she was around. They called her a homewrecker and all the cruel things. It played on her mind and made her feel a certain way, but history is kind to people who have passed.”
Looking back with greater emotional awareness, she expressed regret over not fully understanding her mother earlier: “I understand her now. And I am sorry that I didn’t understand her before. She was dealing with things with a completely different lens, compared to how I used to see it when I was a kid – professional, financial, and others. She started working from the age of four, but she never shared any stories of her struggles with us. She only shared happy stories,” highlighting how parents often shield their children from their own hardships.
Janhvi also spoke candidly about her personal struggles after her mother’s death, admitting, “I try to escape my mind, my inner turmoil. The feelings that I haven’t dealt with, the trauma that I haven’t dealt with. The biggest trauma was losing my mom, especially the way I did, in front of the whole world and dealing with that journey.” She described how deeply dependent she had been growing up: “I was a very dependent daughter. I didn’t make my own decisions. I would depend on her for that. What should I wear? What should I think? What is wrong and right? Everything. So suddenly to make your own decisions with the world ripping you apart, making accusations on family dynamics…”
In the aftermath, she acknowledged making difficult choices while navigating grief and vulnerability. “I made some bad decisions and let some people into my life that had no business being anywhere near me and taking advantage of me the way that they did. I was not putting myself in a safe space. I was compromising my mental and physical safety constantly,” she said. Reflecting on the depth of her loss, she added, “I cannot get over the pain of losing my mom. There is no one like her. I miss how funny she was. I miss who she made me, my sister and my father. I didn’t lose one parent, I lost my father also that day, the version of him that existed when she was around.” She concluded with a poignant thought: “I don’t think she would be able to recognise me now. The world has changed. I have seen things. I have opinions of my own that are not the opinions that she had. I don’t know what that interaction would look like.”
