The 50 contestant Monalisa says she faced discrimination for belonging to Bhojpuri industry, reacts to gender bias on show: ‘Women were treated differently’

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On the gender bias women are facing on the show

A lot of female contestants have claimed they weren’t treated fairly in the game and instead players like Rajat Dalal, Prince Narula, Mr. Faisu, Siwet Tomar, and others treated them as vote banks and put them in the danger zone. Talking about this sexism on the show, Monalisa said, “The matter of girls not being treated fairly also depends on the girls in the game. Why didn’t I become anyone’s favorite? The problem was that many girls chose to showcase their personality by attaching themselves to others. Had they not done that, they wouldn’t have faced such treatment. Women should have been more vocal. I got targeted because of these reasons. When I got evicted, I saw that it was planned; they wanted to evict the smaller team first. All the girls also supported them in this; they shouldn’t have done that.”

Monalisa also commented on bullying accusations made by some female contestants, like Bhavya, Khanzaadi, etc. “I never spoke to Khanzaadi; she was very rude and had misbehaved with me. Bhavya was my roommate, so I would often ask her how someone could bully her and how she allowed it to happen. It all depends on you, if you keep yourself strong, no one can tell you what to do, if that gets me evicted its fine, at least I won’t be called someone’s sidekick. I cannot tolerate someone saying that I came so far with someone’s support, because I didn’t.”

Monalisa, on facing discrimination for being a ‘Bhojpuri actor’

One thing that has deeply hurt Monalisa was being judged by the TV actors as well as influencers for being from the Bhojpuri industry. “What I felt the worst about was… I indeed belong to the Bhojpuri industry; I have done 200 films there, and I come from the regional zone. But for the last seven years, I have also been working in the TV industry. But I didn’t understand why I was being sidelined. I felt the discrimination and only wondered why it happened,” Monalisa shared.

She further added, “When I did Bigg Boss, I was fresh out of the Bhojpuri industry, my vibe did not match. But after so many years, it was the same; we were treated very differently. In the initial days when they made teams, ten would come from the TV and reality actors, and the other 10 from the influencers, and we didn’t get any chance to play. How could we force ourselves into the game? Their alliances were already strong, so we were really struggling to find our space in the show. Finally, Vikrant got a chance, that too after lots of opposition from Rajat Dalal and Adnaan Shaikh. After he proved himself, that’s when they started giving him some importance, but I didn’t get that respect.”

‘At least we didn’t come on the show with 15-16 people’

On The 50, a lot of contestants have brought their friends along. While Mr. Faisu has brought two members from his 007 gang, Prince has come with his Roadies and Spiltsvilla contestants,  Siwet Tomar, Hamid Barkzi, etc. Even Rajat Dalal has come with a group of Elvish Yadav’s friends. While this has been okay, Monalisa recalled often being reminded that she came on the show with someone she knew, her husband. Talking about it, Monalisa said, “People again and again kept reminding us that we came together, but we were just two; some people have come in the show with a group of 15-16 people.”

On the work front, Monalisa has some interesting projects coming up; however, she would only want to talk about them when the time is right.