Bigg Boss 6 contestant says she was gang-raped

New Delhi: This is as shocking as it gets. Bigg Boss 6 contestant and celebrity hairstylist Sapna Bhavnani came out in the open with the horrifying tale of how she was gangraped at gunpoint in Chicago when she was just 24.

Bhavnani, who talked to Humans of Bombay (a Facebook page which posts pictures of people with their life's story, taking inspiration from Brandon Stranton's page Humans of New York), said she was raped on a Christmas eve while on her way home from a bar.

"After my father’s death, I moved to Chicago where there were so many like me and it gave me the freedom to get inked, experiment with my hair and just be myself. One Christmas Eve in Chicago, I walked out of a bar alone late at night in a short dress and red lipstick. I was 24 and had been drinking, when from a dumpster a group of guys walked upto me and put a gun to my head asking me to give them blow jobs, eventually leading to gang rape. I remember walking home, showering and pushing this incident to the back of my mind for years and never letting it break my spirit – I still wear short dresses and the brightest red on my lips," she said.

Known for her tough-girl personality, Bhavnani even recounted how she was abused by her husband. "In years to come, I got married to my high school sweetheart, faced domestic violence and walked out of the marriage wondering how this could happen to ME, a feminist? It’s because sometimes there are things that are beyond your control," she said. Bhavnani, even during her stay at the Bigg Boss house, was the first to voice her disagreement on things. She often got into heated arguments with host Salman Khan himself. "We live in a world where everyone stresses the importance of voicing yourself or walking out of tough situations, but I just want to say this— no one wants to be beaten up, get raped or sell their bodies. It took me 20 years to voice my incident, but for me a woman keeping it all within her because she has no other choice isn’t a sign of weakness – it’s a mark of strength and something we need to start respecting,” she added in the post.

Since being posted on late Wednesday night, the post has gone viral. Where the regular posts get about 5-10,000 likes, this one has a whopping 64,000 likes so far.