Sobhita Dhulipala has weighed in on a growing online debate about whether the Telugu community supports its own, backing an Instagram influencer's post and revealing she left home at 16 because the environment felt "deeply resistant and judgemental."
The discussion started when Hyderabad-based influencer Ahalya posted a video arguing that Telugu people talk up their cinema, culture and identity but don't extend the same pride to each other. "The only enemy of a Telugu person is another Telugu person," Ahalya said in the clip. "Someone starts a new business, opens a restaurant, creates something different, and instead of asking, how can I support this? The first reaction is usually, what's so great about it?"
Dhulipala responded to the post with a "100" emoji, then followed up in the comments with her own experience. "I packed my bags and left for Mumbai at age 16, with no guarantee of making it, but I took my chance 'cause it was clear to me that the environment here felt deeply resistant and judgemental of anyone who dares to dream, especially if you're an outsider to whichever field you want to enter," she wrote. "Double dose if you're a woman."
She added that she hoped things had changed since then, closing her comment with a wish that the community could "grow wings and a spine."
Dhulipala was born in Tenali, Andhra Pradesh, and represented India at Miss Earth 2013 after finishing runner-up at Femina Miss India. She made her acting debut in Anurag Kashyap's Raman Raghav 2.0 in 2016 before her breakout role in the Amazon Prime Video series Made in Heaven. She has since built a career across languages, appearing in the Telugu films Goodachari and Major, the Malayalam films Moothon and Kurup, the two-part Tamil epic Ponniyin Selvan, and the Hindi series The Night Manager, alongside her Hollywood debut in Monkey Man. She was last seen in the Telugu thriller Cheekatilo. She married actor Naga Chaitanya in 2024.
