Did Deepika Padukone Take A Swing At Salman Khan's 'Depression' Comments? Social Media Certainly Thinks So

Deepika Padukone was in New Delhi to speak about a topic she hasn’t shied away from. The Padmaavat star reiterated the importance of initiating a conversation about depression at a launch for a new initiative called How India Perceives Mental Health. Certain statements that she made have been interpreted by people on Twitter to being veiled digs at Salman Khan ’s recent comment on depression.

According to Pinkvilla, Deepika said that she wanted to bust the myth that “depression is sometimes perceived as luxury”.

To a certain section of Twitter users, this comment sounded similar to what Salman had said in February. “I see a lot of people getting depressed and emotional, but I can’t afford that luxury of being depressed or sad or emotional because no matter what I am going through, it works against me,” he had said.

Speaking at the Delhi event, Deepika said, “I want to clarify that it can happen to anybody from any field, irrespective of their socio-economic background. Depression is sometimes perceived as a luxury. People think that those who have too much time or money get into depression. I think it is very important to break that myth.”

“With the help of the foundation, we want to change the narrative around mental health in India. Why only Bollywood? We want everybody in influential positions in the country to speak out about these issues,” Deepika told Hindustan Times.

The use of the words ‘depression’ and ‘luxury’ in the same sentence by two major movie stars was enough to send Twitter into a heated debate, with most people applauding Deepika’s courage to speak about the matter.

Here are a few reactions:

On one hand there are stars like Deepika who constantly open up about their depression and stars like Alia/SRK who make a film on this mental issue....

On the other hand we have Salman Khan who says that depression is a luxury and he sort of equates it to taking a vacation pic.twitter.com/NccI2a95Ga

— Od (@odshek) February 24, 2018

'Salman Khan can't afford the luxury of being depressed.' Last time I check it was a mental illness not a luxury. So now mental illness is considered luxury? Does he even think before making such statements!

— Paulomi⚡️ (@iipaulomi) February 24, 2018

can you believe salman khan said that depression is a luxury that he can not afford and y’all will find a to say "but he’s a mega super star", depression is not a joke, it’s a serious illness and this man makes a joke of it? I can’t pic.twitter.com/pPG1NwMstK

— bollywood (@bollyxpics) February 24, 2018