By Ayesha Khan 
Chennai, May 17: The cameras were rolling. The journalists were seated. And then Ravi Mohan the man Tamil cinema knew for two decades as Jayam Ravi, the reliable box office hero of a hundred posters broke down completely.
What unfolded at a Chennai press conference on Saturday, May 16, was not a carefully crafted PR exercise. It was something rawer, and in many ways far more unsettling: a 45-year-old man, a veteran of 23 years in one of India’s most competitive film industries, weeping before cameras and announcing he was done acting until the courts hand him a divorce. The wrist scars he allegedly showed the gathered media told their own story long before he said a word.
By Sunday morning, the footage had torn across social media. Tamil Nadu was watching. And the industry which rarely speaks plainly about the personal lives of its stars had no idea what to say.
The Man Who Stayed Silent Too Long
Ravi Mohan held the press conference in Chennai on Saturday, where he announced a complete hiatus from acting and his other planned producing and directorial ventures, unless he is granted an official divorce from his estranged wife Aarthi Ravi.
His opening words were striking in their simplicity. “Many people think that I am a sadhu and can be scolded. It is foolish to have not spoken for so long. I will not act until I get a divorce. I have worked day and night for 23 years. 90% of my films have been successful,” he said, his voice cracking.
Visibly emotional during the interaction, Ravi Mohan said he had endured “unnecessary humiliation” for years and could no longer remain silent. Quoting the Tamil proverb “saadhu miranda kaadu kolladhu,” which roughly translates to “one should fear the anger of a calm person,” he said people had been continuously testing his patience.
“I am a very quiet person. That silence became my biggest mistake,” he said. It was the clearest summary of his situation he could have offered.
Twenty-Three Years, One Bank Account
The emotional core of the press meet was not just the tears. It was the financial picture he painted and the domestic claustrophobia embedded inside it.
The actor claimed that while he was married to Aarthi, she controlled his finances through a joint bank account and demanded explanations for every expense he made. He shared that his parents were against his relationship with Aarthi, and said that to date, he does not have a single personal bank account.
For a man whose career stretches from Jayam in 2003 to Ponniyin Selvan and Tik Tik Tik, the claim sounds jarring. A bankable star with a two-decade filmography, no independent financial identity. He stated that he does not possess a personal bank account, having operated solely through a joint account where every transaction was monitored.
He also alleged blackmail in the lead-up to the marriage itself. “She blackmailed me. She cut her hand and blackmailed me to marry her; only then did I marry her. From day one, I have been living a hellish life. They even did black magic,” he alleged.
These are extraordinary claims. They are, as yet, allegations unverified by any court, denied implicitly by Aarthi Ravi’s camp through her social media response, and placed in the public domain entirely by one side of a live legal dispute. That context matters. Still, the specificity with which Ravi Mohan spoke the joint account, the explanations demanded for withdrawals, the loans suggests something beyond theatrical grievance.
The Children, and the Bodyguards
The moment the press conference shifted to his sons, the tone changed entirely.
Ravi Mohan broke down at the mention of his sons Aarav and Ayaan. He alleged that his wife and her family do not allow him access to his children following their separation. “They are not even allowing me to see my children. My happiest moments in life were with them. How can I leave my children? Please don’t question my affection for them when you don’t know the reality. I used to play chess with my boy every day and even lose intentionally just to make him happy. They confiscated their phones, sent bodyguards, and pushed me away from my children,” he said.
“I did not let my children see me. I have lived in my past life for 14 years. How could I abandon my children? I lived for them. But today I am not allowed to see my children. They even send me to school with guardians. I ran away from that life,” he added
The divorce proceedings are currently being heard in the 3rd Additional Family Welfare Court in Chennai. Ravi Mohan announced his separation from Aarthi Ravi in September 2024 following a 15-year marriage. That dispute is still unresolved which is, in part, why Saturday’s press meet happened at all.
The Wrists, and What Came After
The most shocking moment of the press conference and the one that will likely define its legacy was when the actor reportedly slit his wrists and still showed up at the shoot the next day, describing it as a demonstration of his commitment to his work even amid personal collapse.
He made no attempt to dramatise the disclosure. He simply stated it as a fact the kind of detail you share when you have stopped caring what people think and just want the truth heard.
This moment deserves more than a passing mention. Mental health advocacy in Indian cinema has been inconsistent at best. Stars discuss anxiety in interviews but rarely in the context of active self-harm during a live marriage. Ravi Mohan’s admission whatever one makes of the broader dispute opens a conversation the industry has long avoided: that public success is no insulation against private collapse, and that men, including celebrated ones, suffer in ways they are culturally conditioned not to show.
Keneeshaa Francis: The Person in the Middle
The press meet had a second protagonist, one who was not present.
Singer and spiritual therapist Keneeshaa Francis announced on May 16, 2026, her decision to exit social media and relocate from Chennai due to months of severe online harassment regarding her relationship with Ravi Mohan. The announcement marks a major turning point in a relationship that first attracted public scrutiny in June 2024.
She expressed her emotional state in a public post, stating she was “releasing him with peace, with love, and with complete detachment.” She also clarified, “I met him in Goa, listened to him, and told him immediately that I may not be the best person to support him professionally. But I could be there as a friend.”
Ravi Mohan addressed her departure directly at the press meet. “There is a limit to cyberbullying. I have proof and will expose every one of them. From accounts to the insults I went through, I will submit each one of them, you cyberbullying pricks. You have sent Keneeshaa away. I wish her a good life,” he said, his voice hardening at the final words.
He also took aim at what he called a “three-letter actress” an unnamed individual he accused of publicly preaching feminism while allegedly interfering in family structures. “The idle actor has no business preaching feminism. After wrecking families, what business does she have talking about feminism in public forums?” he alleged, without naming the person.
The accusation has generated significant online speculation, though no individual has been confirmed as the target.
Aarthi Ravi: The Sleeping Lion Responds
Aarthi Ravi did not appear at any press meet. She did not make phone calls to journalists. She posted on Instagram, and she let the words do the work.
Hours before Ravi Mohan addressed the media, Aarthi posted a note on Instagram that many interpreted as a direct response to the ongoing controversy. “You never wake a sleeping lion. God help if she’s a mamma lion. My dignified silence should never be mistaken for weakness or taken undue advantage of,” the note read.
The response was calibrated, pointed, and crucially timed. It landed before the press conference, not after. That sequencing was deliberate.
Actor and politician Khushbu Sundar publicly supported Aarthi Ravi by replying to her Instagram post. “Never mess with a mother. And you are a lioness with her cubs. More power to you my baby,” Khushbu commented.
Following Ravi Mohan’s emotional press meet later in the day, Khushbu shared another cryptic post on X: “Some are just hell bent to prove their DNA. Thank you for proving me right,” she wrote, without mentioning anyone by name.
The internet, as always, filled in the blanks.
What the Courts Have Not Yet Decided
The legal dimension of this saga is, in many ways, the least dramatic but ultimately the most consequential.
The divorce proceedings are currently being processed in the 3rd Additional Family Welfare Court in Chennai, with claims from Aarthi Ravi that she had no prior knowledge of Ravi Mohan’s public announcement of their separation in September 2024.
The actor’s decision to halt his career until the divorce is resolved creates an unusual pressure point. Tamil cinema is not a small industry. Films in production, distribution schedules, production houses waiting on a lead actor all of it now sits in uncertain territory. Multiple projects remain shelved pending his divorce resolution.
As it turns out, this is where the story stops being purely personal. When a major star links his professional availability to a court timeline, the ripple effect reaches investors, co-actors, technicians, and distributors. The family court now has, whether it asked for it or not, a degree of indirect pressure that is entirely unprecedented in recent Tamil film history.
A Wider Conversation About Men and Family Courts
There is a broader argument that will inevitably be made about this case and it is already being made in comment sections and podcasts across Tamil Nadu.
India’s family court system, critics argue, has historically been slow to address concerns raised by fathers about child access. Ravi Mohan’s allegations that he requires supervised visits to see his own sons, that bodyguards accompany the children are the kind of claims that men’s rights advocates have been raising for years about the structural imbalance in custody proceedings.
That conversation is legitimate, even if it must be held carefully. Ravi Mohan’s claims are allegations, made at a press conference by a man under considerable emotional strain, in the middle of an active legal dispute. Aarthi Ravi has not yet presented her full account. The family court will hear both sides. Whatever its outcome, the public debate about how Indian courts handle child access in contested divorces and whether the current system serves the interests of children above all deserves honest scrutiny.
For now, Ravi Mohan is not working. Keneeshaa Francis has left the city. Aarthi Ravi has not broken her full silence. And two young boys named Aarav and Ayaan are somewhere in the middle of all of it, being driven to school by bodyguards, waiting for adults to figure out what comes next.
That is the part of this story that ought to matter most.
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- Ayesha Khan
- Ayesha Khan
- Ayesha Khan
- Ayesha Khan
