After Rashmika Mandanna’s deepfake video goes viral, woman from original clip shares statement; Mrunal shows support

A video featuring Rashmika Mandanna’s face recently went viral on social media. The original clip, which was morphed using deepfake AI, was shared by Zara Patel who is a British-Indian Instagram influencer and data engineer. After Rashmika’s strong and heartbreaking reaction to the viral video, Zara has now shared an official statement on her Instagram story. She wrote: “Hi all, It has come to my attention that someone created a deepfake video using my body and a popular Bollywood actresses face. I had no involvement with the deepfake video, and I'm deeply disturbed and upset by what is happening.”

She further requested netizens to take a step back and fact check what they see on the internet because not everything is real. Well, after the video went viral, Rashmika’s Goodbye co-actor and megastar Amitabh Bachchan was one of the first to call for legal action. Actress Mrunal Thakur, who worked with Rashmika in Sita Ramam, has now come out in her support as well. Mrunal took to her official social media handle to share, “Shame on people who resort to such things, it shows that there is no conscience left at all in such people. Thank you @rashmika_mandanna for speaking up, for addressing this issue that so far we have seen glimpses of but a lot of us chose to remain silent.”

She went on to write: “Everyday there are morphed, edited videos of female actors floating around on internet zooming into inappropriate body parts. Where are we heading as a community, as a society? We may be actresses in the "limelight" but at the end of the day each one of us are human.” Mrunal further urged netizens to talk about this issue instead of remaining silent.

On the work front, Rashmika is currently busy gearing up for the release of her next film Animal, co-starring Ranbir Kapoor, Anil Kapoor and Bobby Deol.