Mumbai: Actress Deepika Padukone, who has been a strong supporter of mental health awareness, reacted to cricketer Jemimah Rodrigues’ recent revelations about battling anxiety.
The ‘Om Shanti Om’ actress, who is known to openly share her struggles with depression in the past, praised Jemima for her honesty and courage in speaking out, highlighting the importance of conversations about mental well-being in sports and beyond. Deepika Padukone reshared a video of cricketer Jemimah Rodrigues on her Instagram Stories, in which the athlete opened up about her struggle with anxiety ahead of the ICC Women’s World Cup tournament.
While resharing her video, the actress wrote, “Thank you @jemimahrodrigues for sharing your vulnerability and your story..”
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Speaking at a press conference after the match, Jemimah Rodrigues began to cry as she described how her parents supported her through a difficult period when she felt numb due to constant anxiety. The cricketer shared, “I would be very insecure here because I know that if someone is watching it, they would be going through the same thing. And that’s my whole purpose of saying this because no one likes to talk about their weakness. I was going through a lot of anxiety at the beginning of the tournament and even before some games I would call my mother and cry.”
“Cry the whole time, let it out, because when you’re going through anxiety, you feel numb. You don’t know what to do. You’re trying to be yourself. And in this time, my mother, my father, they supported me a lot. And also, there was Arundhati who I think I cried in front of her almost every day – almost every day I cried in front of her. Later, I was joking, I said, you don’t cry in front of me. Come, I would start crying, but she checks on me every day.
Jemimah was benched after the first few matches of the tournament. Talking about the same, she said, “I was dropped from the team. It really affected me. And, when you are dropped, there are a lot of doubts in your mind because I always want to contribute to the team. But that day I couldn’t do much by sitting out. And then when you come back, there is a lot of pressure with everything that was happening in the last month.”
She added, “But sometimes you just need to hang in there and things fall into place. So, I think, yes, so I’m very grateful for the people who believed in me when I couldn’t and were there for me and understood me because I couldn’t do it on my own.”
Notably, riding on Jemimah Rodrigues’ unbeaten 127-run knock, India chased down a record target of 339 runs at the DY Patil Stadium in Navi Mumbai on October 30 and defeated the defending champions by five wickets to book a place in the final against South Africa on Sunday.