Actress-entrepreneur Rhea Chakraborty has not yet gotten over the death of actor Sushant Singh Rajput, she said in a recent interview.
Speaking on Neha Dhupia and Angad Bedi's chat show Double Date, she said, “It’s not something that you can truly get over. It’s trauma. It stays in your body, if not in your mind.”
She was joined by her brother Showik Chakraborty.
Showik said that his life was completely different before the incident.
“I was a nerd trying to go to MBA college. Then everything went south... We got over it. It's been a couple of years, four or five years, but still some days there are you know those moments, you feel that oh this happened with me... I have PTSD at random times...It was like so much chaos, right,” he said.
Rhea said what made their ordeal especially difficult was that it unfolded under relentless public scrutiny.
The actress also revealed that she had once wanted to channel that experience into her entrepreneurial journey. She initially planned to name her clothing label Chudail Ka Badla (The Witch's Revenge), saying she envisioned quirky T-shirts and merchandise around the idea.
"Everyone told me not to be so negative, but I kept saying, 'It's not negative, it's funny,'" she recalled.
She later considered naming the brand Black Sheep, even getting bracelets made with the phrase because, she said, "that's how we felt at the time. We felt like the black sheep of society."
Sushant Singh Rajput was found dead at his Mumbai residence on June 14, 2020. In the aftermath of his death, Rhea became the subject of intense media scrutiny and multiple investigations. She and Showik were arrested by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) in a drugs-related case before being granted bail. The Bombay High Court later rejected the agency's allegation that Rhea financed Sushant's alleged drug consumption.
In March last year, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) filed a closure report in the case, giving Rhea a clean chit. Since then, she has rebuilt her public profile through her podcast and her lifestyle venture, Chapter 2, launched in August 2024.
Rhea was last seen in the 2021 film Chehre. She is now set to return to acting with Netflix's upcoming series Family Business, which also stars Anil Kapoor, Vijay Varma, Dhruv Sehgal, Neha Dhupia and Raima Sen.