the actor Sameera Reddy He recently opened up about the close bond he shares with his mother-in-law Manjari Verde, how she encouraged him to rediscover his confidence after a difficult phase in life. For those who don’t know, while Sameera stayed away from films for a long time after marriage as she too embraced motherhood, the actress and her mother-in-law are social media sensations. Manjiri is quite an inspiration to many and Sameera believes in keeping it real on social media with her honest posts and candid confessions. In a recent interview, Sameera recalled that when she first met Manjari, she felt that her divorce and her ex-husband’s remarriage had deeply affected her, though she did not express it openly.“I’m going to say it openly today. When I met her, she was divorced and moved out to my in-laws and remarried, and in my head, I always knew, even though she never said it, I always knew it was something that bothered her,” Samira said at the FICCI FLO event in Bengaluru.Agreeing with her daughter-in-law, Manjari admits, “It will bother each of us. It’s not easy being single.”Samira said she saw immense potential in Manjari and made it her mission to help him embrace life with renewed confidence. She wanted her mother-in-law to stop holding back and step into the spotlight.“I decided to make you super hot and supersure because I really felt that she had it in her. And I wanted that for her so I think when I met her, I definitely felt that… it wasn’t that she shrunk herself, but she didn’t go in there and just give in.”The actor also spoke about the social stigma attached to divorce and said that he requested Manjari not to let society dictate how she lived her life.“That’s what divorcees feel and I’m telling you, you don’t have to. You live once, there’s one life and if you want to live it for society… That’s literally the speech I gave him. I said, ‘Nobody’s going to hold your hand when you’re standing alone in a corner crying. You’ve got to get up and you’ve got to do something for yourself’.”Samira added that their intention was never to disrespect her father-in-law or dwell on the past, but to focus on creating a fulfilling future for themselves.“Even if someone steps up, we’re not here to spit in their face; we’re here to go our own way at the same time. Shine a light on yourself; automatically, everyone will start turning to you.”She added, “The whole point is not to shrink yourself for anyone, not your husband, not even your own family.”Sameera Reddy, who moved away from films after marrying businessman Akshay Verde in 2014, later reinvented herself as a parent and lifestyle content creator. During the pandemic, Manjari Verde became a familiar face in her social media videos, with the pair winning praise for their candid and relatable interactions.Earlier, in an interview with Hauterrfly, Samira praised her mother-in-law for always being honest and supportive. She recalled that when they first met, Manjari had candidly told her about Akshay’s dating history and praised her for not blindly taking her son’s side.Describing their relationship, Sameera said Manjari was someone who “was there, talked to me, really, always took my side. Not my son, my son. He was always like, ‘Samira, are you okay? What do you need?'”
