Actress Rhea Chakraborty is grateful to her friends for standing by her and taking care of her parents when she and her brother Showik were lodged in Mumbai’s Byculla jail after Sushant Singh Rajput’s death. In a recent interview, Rhea revealed that some of her friends even ate food and drank alcohol with her parents to make them feel “normal”.

In a recent conversation with Humans of Bombay, Rhea revealed that after being released from jail, she noticed that some of her friends and her parents had gained weight. When she asked them about this, she was shocked to hear the answer.

“A friend of mine – a couple of friends – they used to drink with my dad and eat with him every night when we were inside. When I came out, I thought, ‘Why have you gained so much weight? Bastards, I was in jail there and you guys are eating food here, gaining weight “I was in jail and you were eating and gaining weight,” Riya said. They would say, ‘No yaar. We were just trying to get Uncle and Aunty to eat and drink and make them feel a little normal.’ And I would say, ‘Oh wow!'”

This support from her friends kept Rhea hopeful during the tough time when she was facing infamy following the death of her ex-boyfriend, actor Sushant Singh Rajput.

Sharing how the support of her close friend VJ Shibani Dandekar kept her strong, Rhea said, “I was surrounded by female superpowers. Some of my girlfriends – the way they supported me – oh my God! You don’t need anything else – you can have one true friend in life and that’s enough. Shibani (Dandekar) was that for me. The way Shibani stood up for me was enough for me to know that the whole world can be against me but I have one friend.”

Rhea Chakraborty, who was dating Sushant Singh Rajput at the time, was arrested in September 2020 for allegedly procuring drugs for him. She spent 28 days in Byculla jail before getting bail. During the interview, Rhea recalled her time spent in jail, saying that every day felt like an eternity.