Zeenat Aman talks about time when tabloids targeted her with ‘vicious’ headlines

Mumbai, Sep 2  Actress Zeenat Aman, who has earned the title of ‘Insta queen’ owing to her engaging Instagram posts filled with anecdotes, on Saturday again took a walk down the memory lane as she looked back at the culture of gossip and magazines in Bollywood.

On Saturday, the senior actress took to her Instagram and uploaded an old magazine cover which shows her yet spins a controversial story around her. The magazine issue is from the year 1979.

The actress penned a long note in the caption as she spoke about the culture of taking down actors back in the day.

She wrote: “If the headlines were to be believed, in 1979 I had cursed myself, in 1982 I was being picked on, in 1984 I was out of sync, in 1985 I was marching towards self destruction, and in 1998 I was shattered. There was a time that I subscribed to glossies and tabloids, but that passed very quickly. I could not relate at all to the person they presented me as. The headlines would be adulatory one day and vicious the very next.”

She held the tabloids accountable for not doing proper fact-check on the reportage and also crossing the line of privacy while reporting on stars.

She further mentioned in her note: “There was little by way of fact checking, and no remorse for errors made. When they got the story right – it was usually a colossal breach of privacy. When they got it wrong – those blatant lies would be taken as the gospel. These “scandals” took their toll. It was its own form of public humiliation, and I remember the anxiety, outrage and grief that came with these. At some point my skin toughened, and the realisation dawned that it was impossible for me to challenge the persona that they wanted to create.”

She then reminisced about confronting a senior editor, which she didn’t name, who showed no remorse on false reportage: “The one time I confronted an erstwhile editor about a malicious story, she was full of excuses but not a single apology. I made up my mind then not to take it personally. Undignified as it was, their only interest was selling their magazines.”

“All this is just to say – people will always find reason to talk, and so it’s probably best not to allow their opinion or perception to define your life. You can do that for yourself,” the actress concluded.