Apoorva on IGL: ‘Everything my dad feared came true’

Instagram influencer

Apoorva Mukhija

, better known as ‘The Rebel Kid’ to her 3 million followers, has broken her silence on the hate she received after her appearance on the now-infamous episode of

India’s Got Latent

. While most of the criticism from that episode was directed at

YouTuber Ranveer Allahbadia

for his remarks about discussing sex with parents, a clip featuring Apoorva also sparked major backlash.
Although she had earlier apologised, admitting she should’ve been more careful with her words, Apoorva has now revealed the emotional and mental toll the trolling took on her and her family.
Speaking to Yuvaa, Apoorva shared how she tried to shield herself by turning off her comments, DMs, and story mentions. “For the last 1 to 1.5 years, the

rape threats

and

death threats

didn’t affect me much,” she said. “You read it every day—it becomes like ‘Horn OK Please’ written behind trucks. It just stops meaning anything. That’s the field you’re in.”
Apoorva Mukhija reveals toll on her family

But this time, it was different. “I’d never been hit like this. I wasn’t even relevant enough to be in the scandal—I had the least followers at that table. But they found my parents’ accounts. My mom’s was public. And I didn’t even check on them for two days because I was just trying to survive.”
It was only when she called her brother that she realised the situation at home had escalated. “He told me my mom’s BP had gone up to 180/120. I Googled it—that’s emergency-level. People had sent her rape threats and slut-shamed me. And when I asked what mom did, he said, ‘She just wrote: I’m very proud of my daughter.’ And then she turned off her comments.”
Apoorva Mukhija on her family's silent suffering
Fighting back tears, Apoorva added, “That really hurt me because, like I said, I always wanted to do a lot for my mom. And my dad—whatever he said while I was growing up—I just felt like he lost all of that in a second. Everything he feared came true. And my parents went through all of it, yet they didn’t complain even once. I just wish this wasn’t the price I had to pay. But I’ll get out of India, and it'll all be fine."

When asked how her mother is doing now, Apoorva said, “She’s here. She’s fine. My parents never once said, ‘Why us?’ I went home for 15 days, and I cried every single day. They kept saying, ‘It’ll pass. You’ll be fine.’ They even joked, saying, ‘You’re also a Bollywood person now.’ And I was like, ‘Please, I had a two-minute role in a Dharma film. Stop it.’”

Apoorva also shared that her younger brother was one of the reasons she agreed to do the show. “He thinks I’m cool because I went on Latent. He told me it was the coolest thing to happen in the country. So I thought I’d crack a couple of jokes and make him proud. But... that’s not how you make people proud.”