It’s surreal how every actor, who is fiercely guarded about their private lives, was once an open book for all to read. Today’s celebrities understand the power of social media and know how to utilise it to further their image and work around potential risks. However, this wasn’t the case with celebrities who were present in the mid-2000s. They were candid with their responses. They didn’t hide their relationships. They allowed the narrative to not be in their hands. They lived between the arc lights and the spotlight. Nayanthara was one such actor, who had both these lights shining on her as bright as possible. Right from her transition from Malayalam cinema to Tamil and Telugu films, she became a success story that was always the talk of the town.
In the recently released ‘Netflix’ documentary, ‘Nayanthara: Beyond the Fairytale’, she opened up about her past relationships, the learnings from them and the toll they took on her before finding peace in her husband, filmmaker Vignesh Shivan. “My first relationship was purely based on trust. The trust that the other person is in love with you,” said Nayanthara in the documentary without taking any names. Her first relationship after entering the cinema was with actor-filmmaker Silambarasan TR.
They worked together in Silambarasan’s debut directorial, ‘Vallavan’ and made headlines with the news of them being together. In many ways, they were the ‘It couple’ of that era. Both young and primed to move up the ladder in Tamil cinema and it was something that wasn’t seen in the industry for a long time. Vallavan too marked the first time Nayanthara kissed onscreen and a particular ‘glamorous’ poster became a talking point for quite some time.
However, a leaked image of them kissing each other offscreen, which became public without her consent became a point of contention. The relationship didn’t last long and both moved on, albeit in not so amicable terms. In the documentary, Nagarjuna, who was shooting for ‘Boss’ with Nayanthara at that time, said, “I think it was a turbulent time in her relationship. In fact, we would dread the moment her phone rang because it would turn her off immediately. She became a different person.”