Mumbai, Feb 4 (IANS): Actress and model Poonam Pandey, who is currently facing a lot of backlash on the Internet for faking her death in order to raise awareness about cervical cancer, has issued a statement addressing the flak.
She said that she has not done this for publicity and that she doesn’t need publicity. As per her, this was done for a "good cause."
Recently, she took to her Instagram and shared a video of herself defending her action of faking her death to get people to talk about cervical cancer. She said that she is not being insensitive in this case as she has seen her mother suffering from throat cancer, and she knows how tough the battle is.
She said in the video: “For those who think I’m being insensitive, I would like to tell you, my mother suffered cancer. She had throat cancer and I have seen this in my house how bad it gets. Here, I was promoting something for a good cause, a cancer which is preventable yet so many women die. In the live session with Hauterfly, I said this very clearly that none of the parties got paid for this.”
She said that all this was done for a good cause as “no pharmaceutical company is involved” in this act.
She continued: “We did this to raise awareness, and it has. A lot of people, who had no idea of cervical cancer are Googling it now, and it is trending right now. I’m getting a lot of comments and DMs where women are telling me that they’re getting the HPV vaccine and they’re getting their pap smear test done.”
She further mentioned: “I have not done this for publicity, I don’t need publicity. I knew very well that I would face this kind of backlash, apart from knowing that I did this because I did it for a good cause, guys. Aap logon ne meri death ke baare mein suna toh aap sab log cervical cancer ke baare mein baat kar rahe the.”
“The moment you got to know that I’m alive, you guys are now targeting me for doing something for a good cause. Cervical cancer ke baare mein agar sab baat karte toh mujhe ye sab karne ki zaroorat nahi padti, and guys, my PR is not involved in this,” she added.