The first episode of the latest season of the popular talk show Koffee With Karan received praise from its audience for having honest and vulnerable conversations about mental health. Hosted by Bollywood filmmaker and producer Karan Johar, the first episode of Season 8 featured actors Deepika Padukone and Ranveer Singh. Both Deepika and Karan shared insights about their struggles with mental health illness, how they sought help and why more people should be having conversations around this subject.
The episode, which premiered on October 26 on Hotstar, had Deepika Padukone open up about how she struggled with depression and how her then partner and now husband Ranveer created a safe space where she could be vulnerable. She said, “I think he [Ranveer] understands mental illness today slightly better than he did back then. He created a safe space for me to be able to be vulnerable, to be able to share, communicate because a lot of the time you are just feeling so many things and you don’t know how to communicate.” The actor also noted how Ranveer never offered suggestions like going for a drive or playing some music to help her feel better but was simply there for her.
Deepika recalled an incident from 2014 when she experienced a blackout during one of Ranveer's shoots and asked if he could come to her house. Ranveer said that he left the shooting spot as soon as he got her call and went to see Deepika. He added, “When I went and saw her, I knew something was not right. I could see her and speak to her but she was not there at all.”
Adding on to what Deepika shared, Ranveer said that there were moments when he felt “helpless” when she had a particularly bad mental health episode. He shared an incident where Deepika was crying at the breakfast table and he did not know how to help her. He said, “I knew this was a very serious problem when she was sitting across from me and was just crying. There were just tears, copious [amounts of] tears flowing and at a human level, the basic question was ‘kya hua baby?’ [what happened baby?]. She did not know why she was crying.” The actor then said that he called Deepika’s family and they had stayed with the couple for a few days. Deepika added that she was fine when her parents and sister were with them but had a breakdown when they went to drop them at the airport. The actor also said that it was at this point her mother realised that she might need medical help and decided to consult a psychologist.
After the actors shared their experiences, the host of the show Karan also expressed how he had been struggling with his mental well being too. He recalled an incident where he had an anxiety attack at the launch of the Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre (NMACC) in March earlier this year. The filmmaker said that he thought he was having a cardiac arrest. Karan further mentioned how actor Varun Dhawan noticed that he was not looking too well and took him aside to ask if he was okay.
The filmmaker also said that he left the event in half an hour, went home and wept. Karan said,“I did not know why I was crying. I sought professional help and now I am on medication since then. I think this stemmed from accumulating everything, brushing it under the carpet and being strong all the time.”
Deepika Padukone had spoken about her mental health in several public platforms earlier. She and Ranveer Singh got married in 2018 and this is their first interview together since then. The couple also shared snippets of their private wedding that took place in Italy.