Sobhita Dhulipala Says She Was ‘Being Narrow, Stereotyping’ When She Vowed Never to Date an Actor

AKD 2 min read

She tied the knot with Telugu star Naga Chaitanya in 2024, years after insisting she would never date someone from the industry.

Mumbai — Actor Sobhita Dhulipala has opened up about how her views on love and relationships have shifted over the years, admitting that her much-quoted 2016 declaration that she would “never date an actor” was a case of stereotyping.

“I think I was stereotyping it at that time maybe because of the examples I saw around me. That was probably me being narrow,” Dhulipala said in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter India.

The actor said she has no problem revisiting and revising her opinions. “I’m more scared of people who don’t change their opinions. I’m okay with having different opinions at different points of time. I’m okay with myself adapting,” she said.

From a firm ‘never’ to marriage

Around a decade ago, Dhulipala attributed her resolve to her belief that “the vanity is too much” when two actors date. Life took a different turn: she began dating Telugu star Naga Chaitanya in 2022 and married him in 2024, the engagement announced by her father-in-law and veteran actor Nagarjuna.

She said she had already softened her stance before publicly acknowledging the relationship. “I think my judgments have come down a little bit. Being judgmental is not necessarily a bad thing… Being judgmental in measure is very natural. I may have had a certain amount of conditioning which I am, over the years, pulling down,” she told Film Companion in 2023.

On public scrutiny

Dhulipala also addressed the intense scrutiny of her personal life after she began dating Chaitanya less than a year after his divorce from fellow actor Samantha Ruth Prabhu.

“Society is like weather. It comes and goes. If you overidentify the weather, you’re going to be lost once the weather changes. So, I think it’s important to be centered and keep my eyes open to what the reality is,” she said. “Being centered is a choice you make.”

On the idea of love

The actor said she does not view love as a single category tied to romance. “At the cost of sounding a little self-absorbed maybe, I don’t think love is a relationship. It’s a state of mind. It’s like a vibration. I don’t think of romantic love when I think of love. I’m always feeling love.”

Up next on screen

Dhulipala’s recent work includes Telugu-Hindi action film Major, Mani Ratnam’s Ponniyin Selvan, Hollywood directorial debut Monkey Man, the ZEE5 film Love, Sitara, and the Prime Video Telugu crime thriller Cheekatilo. She is now preparing for her first Indian theatrical release in three years — Pa Ranjith’s Tamil sci-fi sports action film Vettuvam, slated for release this December.