Netflix's Dabba Cartel actress Anjali Anand recalls teacher kissing her on lips at 8: 'He wouldn't let me keep my...'

Anjali Anand, who is known for her portrayals in Netflix’s Dabba Cartel and Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani, recently recalled her traumatic experience where her dance teacher sexually abused her when she was 8.

Anjali shared how her dance teacher dictated her and her first boyfriend saved her. “I didn’t know what to do. I was eight, just after my dad passed. He told me, ‘I am your dad,’ and I believed him because I didn’t know any better. Then he started very slowly—he gave me a peck on my lips and said, ‘It is what dads do.,” Anjali shared while talking to Hauterrfly.

More from Entertainment

'Jugnuma' Movie Review: Manoj Bajpayee-Deepak Dobriyal’s terrific performances stood out in this beautifully restrained way of storytelling 'Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale' Movie Review: The final goodbye of Julian Fellowes’s beloved British soap

She continued, “He wouldn’t let me keep my hair open. He wouldn’t let me wear girls’ clothes; he made me wear his old T-shirts so that I didn’t look appealing to others. When my sister got married and my dad’s best friend’s son came to the wedding, he had a crush on me and started talking to me. That’s when I thought, ‘This feels normal.’ I just felt stuck. He used to keep tabs on my itemised billing—he knew what messages I was sending. He caught me talking to this guy. He used to wait outside my school to pick me up. And everybody was like, ‘Why is he always there?’ But nobody even tried to see why.”

Anjali shared that she thanked her first boyfriend for saving her and helping her escape that nightmare.

She was recently seen in _Dabba Cartel_ , which also featured Shabana Azmi, Jyothika, Shalini Pandey, Nimisha Sajayan, Sai Tamhankar, Gajraj Rao, Bhupendra Jadawat, Lillete Dubey and Jisshu Sengupta among others in prominent roles. It was created by Shibani Dandekar Akhtar, Vishnu Menon, Gaurav Kapur, and Akanksha Seda, and directed by Hitesh Bhatia.