Florian Hurel, the make-up artist of actors Deepika Padukone and Sara Ali Khan, was accused on Tuesday of physical abuse by his former girlfriend Hivayi Saigal, who also works as a make-up artist in the Hindi film industry.
Saigal made the allegations in an ‘Ask Me Anything’ session on Instagram against Hurel, who was also her former employer.
One of the users on Instagram asked Saigal, “Your ex used to physically abuse, can you talk about it?” Replying to the question, Saigal wrote: “It started as a boss-assistant relationship and turned into friendship very shortly. We were both dating other people and then shortly we realised we were in love. It all moved very quickly from dating to moving into taking an apartment to getting engaged.”
“Florian broke me down to a point where I didn’t recognise myself. It started with trying to control each part of my life – work, friendships, my schedule and when I rebelled a bit it would turn into violence. He slowly and very charmingly sucked me in and I called it love. It started with a push, then a slap increased with time. It was broken bones, bruises all over and he would put me in the tub every time and break down. It would feel like my fault. I started drinking to feel numb with just cause more violence cause I started talking and fighting back,” she wrote.
She alleged that he took away her money and dog as well.
She said that she did not press charges at the time as she was “emotionally weak”.
In response, Hurel posted a statement in Instagram on Wednesday and called them “baseless allegations”.
“Off late, a lot of defamatory remarks have been made against me on social media (Baseless Allegations) to harm my reputation due to progress and strength,” he wrote.
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While his wife, Rina Charaniya Hurel, showed her support to her husband on Instagram, actors like Amyra Dastur and Esha Gupta and celebrity chef Kelvin Cheung also supported Hurel by commenting on the statement.
“You are nothing less than a dream to work with and be around. Haters gonna hate,” Dastur wrote.
