Rajeev Khandelwal has worked in several TV shows, films and web series. In a recent interview with TOI, the actor shared an incident which he experienced before he debuted in Bollywood. Rajeev revealed that he too was at the receiving end of inappropriate advances. He was reminded of his own horrific experience when the #MeToo movement hit the country in 2018. “The incident gave me flashes of a once-upon-a-time super director who had offered me a movie back then when I did not start doing films,” he said.
Rajeev said that the incident happened before he debuted with Raj Kumar Gupta's Aamir. Though he was a TV star at that time with shows like Kahiin Toh Hoga and Left Right Left to his credit, he was called into the filmmaker's office at home to discuss the project. “Next time, he called me from his office to his room, and then he made me sit there and decided not to give me the story, instead asked me to decide whether I want to do the movie based on one song,” he said.
When Rajeev told the director that he doesn't sign the project without reading a script, the person lashed out at him. “By the second meeting, I had realised things were just not alright. It turned into a hilarious situation as well. I found myself feeling how any woman in my place would have felt. He asked me to go to his room which I refused to. I dropped names and mentioned that I have a girlfriend back then waiting for me so that the guy knows that I am straight,” he shared.
The director was so infuriated that he went on to threaten to ruin Rajeev's career for rejecting his advances. “Later, he offered me a two-film deal, saying that he had heard that I was doing a small budget-movie, which was Aamir, at that time. I replied to him saying that I was happy with my small budget movie. I don’t know what happened to his film when it came out,” the actor revealed.
Rajeev was last seen in the Voot's web series Marzi, alongside Aahana Kumra.
