Rashmika Mandanna
Actor
Pan-India star of Pushpa and Animal whose viral 2023 face-swap deepfake — which she called “extremely scary” — triggered Indian government advisories requiring platforms to take down deepfakes within 36 hours.
In her words
Something like this is honestly, extremely scary not only for me, but also for each one of us who today is vulnerable to so much harm because of how technology is being misused.
Biography
Rashmika Mandanna (born 1996) rose from Kannada and Telugu cinema to become one of India’s biggest pan-Indian stars, headlining the blockbusters Pushpa: The Rise (2021), Animal (2023), and Pushpa 2: The Rule (2024), and earning the media nickname “National Crush of India.”
The deepfake that woke up a country
In November 2023, a video went viral showing what appeared to be Mandanna entering an elevator — in reality, her face had been AI-swapped onto the body of British-Indian influencer Zara Patel. Mandanna responded on X that she felt “really hurt” and called the episode frightening for everyone vulnerable to such technological misuse, adding that if this had happened to her in school or college she could not imagine how she would have coped.
The incident became a national flashpoint. Veteran star Amitabh Bachchan declared it “a strong case for legal” action, and India’s IT ministry issued advisories reminding platforms that under IT rules they were legally obligated to remove reported deepfakes within 36 hours, with minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar calling deepfakes an “even more dangerous and damaging form of misinformation.” Delhi Police later arrested a suspect in the case.
Mandanna has continued to speak against deepfake abuse, urging fans to think before sharing manipulated content and thanking supporters for standing up for her.
Where they stand in the war
Who backs them up
Sources & further reading
Canonical record: https://battlelines.ai/topic/rashmika-mandanna