Leone can thank the Internet for her stardom.
Former porn star and Bollywood actress Sunny Leone has made it into the BBC’s list of 100 Most Influential Women.
The list features high-profile women like entrepreneurs, engineers, sportswomen, fashion icons and artists. This year, the list features four other Indians, apart from Leone – Gouri Chindarkar (Sangli), Mallika Srinivasan (Chennai), Neha Singh (Mumbai) and Saalumarada Thimmakka (Karnataka).
BBC describes Leone as a “former porn star who entered mainstream acting in 2013 and has appeared in several Bollywood films.”
The 35-year-old Indian-Canadian actress made her Bollywood entry in Pooja Bhatt’s erotic thriller Jism 2 in 2012. Before that, she had worked as a red carpet reporter for the MTV Video Music Awards on MTV India and participated in the Indian reality television series Bigg Boss. Leone has several Bollywood movies to her credit, including Jackpot (2013), Ragini MMS 2 (2014) and Ek Paheli Leela (2015).
Beating all other celebrities and even Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Sunny Leone became the most searched Indian celebrity on the internet in 2015.
Chindarkar is a 20-year-old computer engineering student from Sangli, Maharashtra. She is one of the first children in India to experience a unique learning experience now known as ‘School in the Cloud’.
Known as the ‘Tractor Queen’ of India, 57-year-old Mallika Srinivasan, the CEO of Tractors and Farm Equipment Ltd, has grown her family company into the third largest tractor manufacturer in the world.
Neha Singh, 34, is an actor who founded a movement to encourage women to walk the streets in Mumbai to defy harassment.
Environmentalist Saalumarada Thimmakka, 105, is the oldest on the list. She is known for planting more than 8,000 trees in 80 years, a project which first started in response to social ridicule at not being able to have children.