Highlights
- Successful actresses are often accused of choosing relationships for money or status
- The ‘gold digger’ and ‘climber’ labels can erase women’s own careers and financial independence
- Anupama Parameswaran, Samantha Ruth Prabhu, Sushmita Sen and Malaika Arora have all faced versions of the same narrative
- Their responses show how female stars are increasingly refusing to accept the assumption that a relationship must have a financial motive
When a successful woman is linked to a wealthier or more powerful man, the question is often not whether she is happy, in love or making an independent choice. Instead, the conversation quickly turns to what she might gain from the relationship.
That is where the word ‘climber’ becomes revealing. It suggests that a woman is using a relationship to move upwards socially, financially or professionally, reducing a personal choice to a calculated transaction. In Indian celebrity culture, the label often appears alongside accusations of being a ‘gold digger’, particularly when a relationship ends.
The pattern has played out across different generations and industries, from Anupama Parameswaran to Samantha Ruth Prabhu, Sushmita Sen and Malaika Arora. What makes these cases particularly striking is how easily the women’s own careers disappear from the conversation.
When a woman’s own success gets erased
Anupama Parameswaran's recent comments about a difficult relationship have again put the focus on how quickly assumptions can be made about women and their partners. She has spoken about an intense two-year relationship in which marriage discussions began early, while saying she eventually understood that what she was experiencing was not love. She also said the relationship affected her mental health and career.
That matters because the ‘climber’ narrative leaves little room for a woman to simply make a personal decision. An actress can spend years building a career across films and languages, yet public discussion can still reduce her relationship to a question of what she supposedly stands to gain.
Samantha Ruth Prabhu faced a similar wave of speculation following her divorce from Naga Chaitanya. False claims circulated online about her allegedly seeking a huge alimony payment, including figures running into crores, and she was branded a ‘gold digger’. Her own response was to dismiss the abuse rather than accept the premise behind it.
The problem with the accusation is not simply that it is insulting. It changes the starting point of the conversation. Instead of asking what happened between two people, it assumes the woman entered the relationship with an agenda.
The accusation follows women even when they can afford their own lives
Sushmita Sen's experience exposes the double standard particularly clearly. When her relationship with businessman Lalit Modi became public in 2022, social media users quickly branded her a ‘gold digger’. Sen responded with one of her most memorable lines, saying she “dig[s] deeper than Gold” and has always preferred diamonds, adding that she still buys them herself.
Years later, Modi himself defended Sen and said she was self-made and never financially dependent on him.
Malaika Arora faced the same accusation after her divorce from Arbaaz Khan, with a social media user claiming she had married a rich man and divorced him for alimony. Arora hit back, telling the commenter to “get your damn facts right” before judging her life. She was already established as a model, television personality and entrepreneur.
Rhea Chakraborty faced an even harsher version of the same financial narrative during the public scrutiny following Sushant Singh Rajput's death. Asked directly about accusations that she had taken money from him, Chakraborty denied receiving money from Rajput or her family and said their relationship was not a financial arrangement.
Across these cases, the assumption remains remarkably persistent: if a woman is with a man who is richer, older, more powerful or more established, there must be a financial explanation.
The script is changing, but the question remains
What these women have increasingly refused to do is accept that premise.
Sen questioned why her own ability to earn and buy things for herself could so easily be dismissed. Arora challenged strangers who claimed to know the financial details of her marriage. Chakraborty explicitly rejected the idea that her relationship was based on financial exploitation. Samantha's experience showed how quickly an unverified alimony narrative could become part of online abuse.
The bigger issue is why women continue to be expected to prove that they did not ‘date up’. A successful man can enter a relationship with a famous woman without the public immediately assuming he is seeking access to her wealth, connections or status in the same way.
The ‘climber’ label therefore says less about the woman being judged and more about the expectation placed on women in relationships. It assumes that a woman must be gaining something, because apparently love, attraction, compatibility or simply choosing a partner are not explanations enough.
The women pushing back against that narrative are changing the script. They are not asking to be believed because they are celebrities. They are asking for the same basic assumption afforded to everyone else: that a woman can make choices about whom she loves without her independence, ambition and career being erased the moment she does.
