He Told Me To Strip In Front Of Him: Model Paula Accuses Sajid Khan

Filmmaker Sajid Khan was recently accused by an Indian model named Paula for sexual misconduct. She took to her Instagram account and penned a note on Wednesday alleging that Khan asked her to strip to get a role in his film Housefull.

Paula revealed that she was just 17 at that time. She wrote, "When #MeToo movement started, a lot of people spoke about Sajid Khan but I did not dare to because like every other actor who has no godfather and had to earn for a family I kept quiet. Now I don't have my parents with me. I'm earning for myself. I can dare to tell that I have been harassed by Sajid Khan at the age of 17."

Check out her post here:

View this post on Instagram

🙏🏼 Before democracy dies and there is no freedom of speech anymore I thought I should speak !

A post shared by Dimple paul (@paulaa__official) on Sep 9, 2020 at 5:18am PDT

In the wake of #MeToo movement back in 2018, the Housefull film series director Khan was accused by several women. Three women, including actors Saloni Chopra, Rachel White and journalist Karishma Upadhyay, called out the director and accused him of misconduct with female colleagues on various film sets.

I finally decided to share my story with you. Writing this was like re-living all that horrible past I’d chosen to let go of, but I knew if I don’t today, I may never. So here’s #metoo #MetooIndia https://t.co/brouTYIBC7

— Saloni Chopra (@redheadchopra) October 11, 2018

Now more than two years later, Paula has come out with a similar allegations. She captioned her post saying, "Before democracy dies and there is no freedom of speech anymore I thought I should speak!" Narrating her experience, Paula further added, "He spoke dirty to me. He tried to touch me. He even told me to strip in front of him just to get a role in his upcoming Housefull movie." She said that she was scared to speak up as a kid but not anymore. She also claimed that the horrifying experience had affected her badly as a child.

She blamed him for "not only casting couch but manipulating and stealing away your dreams". 

Amid the #MeToo row, the makers of Housefull 4 had suspended the filmmaker for a year and also dropped Khan’s name as a director of the movie. Back then, he had issued a statement on Twitter denying all the chargers, “In the wake of the allegations against me and the pressure being put on my family, my producer and the stars of the film Housefull 4, I must take the moral responsibility of stepping down from my directorial post, till the time I can allay the allegations and prove the truth. I request my friends in the media to kindly not pass judgment till the truth is out," he wrote.

Subsequently, Sajid Khan was replaced by Farhad Samji as the director of Housefull 4.

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