A video showing actress Rani Mukerji shouting at journalist Rajdeep Sardesai is going viral on social media, with the claim that Mukerji scolded Sardesai over his comment about her weight in a recent interview (here, here, here and here). In this article, we fact-check the claims made in these posts.
Claim: The video shows Rani Mukerji scolding Rajdeep Sardesai for commenting on her weight during an interview.
Fact: This viral video clip does not show a real incident or any scolding. It is from the India Today Conclave 2025, where Rani Mukerji was enacting a scene from her film Mardaani at the request of Rajdeep Sardesai. In the full video, Sardesai did not ask any personal questions about her weight gain. Hence the claim made in the post is FALSE.
To learn more about this viral video, we conducted a Google keyword search. This led us to the full interview video, which premiered on the official YouTube channel of India Today on 26 September 2025, titled: Rani Mukerji & Meeran Chadha Borwankar Exclusive | India Today Conclave Mumbai 2025. Upon reviewing the entire video, we found that at no point did Rajdeep Sardesai ask any personal questions about Mukerji’s weight gain after her marriage. The video shows Mukerji discussing her journey, filmography, and her recent National Award win for her role in Mrs Chatterjee vs Norway. She also spoke about her film series Mardaani, in which she plays a police officer.
At the 31:11 timestamp, former IPS officer Meeran Chadha Borwankar narrates a scene from Mardaani: “There was one scene in Mardaani where she (Mukerji) is standing in a police station, and she’s 5’ nothing, while huge, very tall and broad policemen are standing in front of her. In a very business-like manner, she asks them to handle a particular issue, and the way the director portrayed it, those masculine men, maybe from the crime branch, look at her, accept her leadership, and do what she tells them. That scene was so powerful; it conveyed that it’s not gender that matters, but proficiency in the job.”
Following this, at the 32:11 timestamp, Sardesai turns to Mukerji and asks her to reenact the moment, saying, “I can stand here as the gunda who’s been hauled up in your police station… and then you can tell me.” Mukerji then responds in character, shouting “Sit down!”, which is the part shown in the viral video. The viral clip is a dramatic acting sequence in which Mukerji, as the police officer, delivers the dialogue. The preceding context has been edited out to falsely suggest that Rani Mukerji was scolding Rajdeep Sardesai for commenting on her weight during an interview.
To sum it up, this viral video clip is from the India Today Conclave 2025, and shows Rani Mukerji enacting a scene from her film ‘Mardaani’, rather than responding to any personal questions.
