Agree with her or not, it would take the straight-speaking producer Ekta Kapoor to speak her truth on the sexual harassment issue…Present along with Nimrat Kaur, who is the leading lady of ALTBalaji's web series The Test Case, on Mirror Now’s show, The Town Hall, hosted by Barkha Dutt, she was asked whether Harvey Weinsteins also existed in Bollywood. Has the #MeToo campaign helped women come out with their stories of abuse in the entertainment industry, was the question put forth.

Ekta stated, “Well, I think there are Harvey Weinsteins in Bollywood, but there is probably an equal number of Harvey Weinsteins on the other side of the story, but people do not want to talk about that part. Yes, there are people in power like producers who use their power to take advantage of people, but at the same time there are people on the other side, like an actor or others who need the job, would also use their sexuality to get things done. Therefore, I believe that predators should not be put in a box based on power. It is always not true that the person who does not have power is the victim.”

Explaining her point further, she added, “Being a producer, on a personal level when I talk to my male counterparts, they said they were propositioned blatantly. Is that person not a predator? In our industry, if one actor meets a producer at 2 a.m. and hooks up with him and after five days, if she wants a job based on that and the producer doesn’t give the job because he wants personal and professional things separate, then who is the victim here? The interpretation is always that the powerful person took advantage of the poor little budding actor or something that is always not the truth.”

Ekta has touched upon a complicated issue of what exactly entails harassment.
Her statements come in the wake of the recent accusation made against her father, Jeetendra. The veteran actor-producer had been accused of sexually harassing his cousin, who had filed a police complaint 47 years after the alleged incident.

Recommended Read: Jeetendra accused of sexual assault by cousin, lawyer issues a statement

The charges had been dubbed by Jeetendra as “baseless”, and a “miserable effort by a jealous competitor to disrupt his business activities”. Ekta’s views acquire an added meaning when seen through the perspective of this incident.