Saisha Shinde says leading designer cheated on her, got her banned from work: ‘He had a boyfriend in each metro city’

Fashion designer Saisha Shinde recently shared on Lock Upp that a leading designer cheated on her and had gotten her banned from the industry for a while. Saisha, who was known to the fashion world and Bollywood as Swapnil Shinde before she came out as a transwoman with a new name in January 2021, revealed that it happened when she had just started working. She recalled that the man charmed her with a sob story which he had repeated to several other boys as well. Also Read| Kangana Ranaut says she was ‘banned’ in film industry after MeToo movement: ‘Women I supported vanished’

During the latest episode of Lock Upp, host Kangana Ranaut had offered Saisha to share a secret to save herself from eviction. Saisha then recalled that the incident happened around 2006 when she had just started her career.

She said, “I was new to the industry, there was this one Indian designer who was my favourite. This was my second or third show at fashion week. When I met him, obviously I was enamoured by him. He decided to meet me and I was obviously very excited. He called me to his hotel room, I knew that it was not just a meeting if he is calling me to his hotel room. There he talked to me very lovingly and said that ‘my life is a suitcase and I keep moving from hotel to hotel.’ He tried to show that he has such a sad life, that he doesn’t have a caring person in his life despite all the fame and fortune.”

She further recalled, “Thinking about that, I hugged him, and of course, we had sex. After that I was in touch with him, we met often. Later I found out from my friends that they also were told the same story about the suitcase and were taken to the hotel room. He had done this to at least 7 to 8 boys. When this news started spreading in the industry, I faced a ban, I wasn’t allowed to participate in fashion week, on the grounds that I am spreading stories. In reality, I didn’t tell it to anyone, but he himself told it to lock me out from the industry.”

Saisha added, “So this is my secret, I had a relationship with a leading Indian designer who cheated on me and was having a boyfriend in each metropolitan city. And he actually did have one in each metropolitan city.” Kangana sympathised with her and noted that this is the hard truth of the film industry and the fashion industry.

The finale of Lock Upp will be held on Saturday, March 7. The remaining contestants on the captivity-based reality show apart from Saisha are Munawar Faruqui, Azma Fallah, Shivam Sharma, Poonam Pandey, Payal Rohatgi, Prince Narula, and Anjali Arora.