Rithvik Dhanjani, who has been a prominent face on Indian Television, recently opened up about his casting couch experience. He recently appeared on the Two Girls and Two Cups podcast and recalled how he met a casting director in Mumbai’s Aram Nagar and faced the casting couch when he was only 20 years old.

Rithvik recalled that the director had chosen him from a line of actors. “That guy took me inside the studio and said, ‘You are shortlisted.’ I was shocked, it felt like an angel had come from nowhere, taken me out of the line and said I was shortlisted. I was elated, and I started thanking him,” Rithvik said, “Then he said I had to come to his office right away, and I said, ‘Yeah, sure.’”

The casting director asked Rithvik how he had come, and the actor told him “on a bike”. The director then said, “Okay, I’ll sit behind you.” “I should have realised right then that something was wrong,” Rithvik said.

The actor said, “Someone so prominent should have a car, and if not a car, then at least a two-wheeler. He was sitting behind me on my bike, can you imagine?” On the way, the casting director told him about the actors he had launched, leaving Rithvik impressed. However, things went awry when they reached the ‘office’.

He said, “I saw there were no offices, there was a grocery shop, a bun-maska stall. I kept thinking, ‘Does he really do casting here? That can’t be.’ He asked me to come inside and led me into a narrow lane; I assumed there might be a bungalow at the end. Instead, there was a gate with a huge lock. He opened it, and inside it was completely dark, with stairs going up. He said, ‘Come up, this is my office.’ I swear I peed my pants, by then I had realised something was off, this is not right.”

Upstairs, the casting director asked Rithvik to show him his showreel. However, he stopped it midway and told the actor, “In the industry, you don’t have to work hard; you have to work smart.” Then he began touching the actor. “The moment he touched me, I froze. I was terrified inside. I was only 20 years old. I was shaking. Somehow, I managed to get out of there,” Rithvik recalled.

“My friend consoled me and said this happens in the industry, that it’s not a big deal. But it took me a long time to get over it,” he said. Rithvik Dhanjani nearly quit the entertainment industry, but decided to stay on, becoming one of the most popular faces on Indian television.