Swagatha Krishnan accuses composer of abuse and blackmail

Singer Swagatha S. Krishnan, whose voice carried Yeno Pennae in Ispade Rajavum Idhaya Raniyum and songs in Kaatrin Mozhi and Bachelor, has gone public with allegations of sustained sexual abuse and blackmail by a composer she is yet to name. Speaking on the YouTube show Sivasankari Talks and in a follow-up conversation with Vikatan, Swagatha said the assault took place inside the composer’s studio, that he recorded it on CCTV, and that he used the footage to keep her silent in the years that followed.

She described what she called a very brutal sexual abuse, inside a room that had no business being that kind of room. The studio was soundproof. “Even if I screamed, no one could hear me,” she said. The doors locked from the inside. There were overt CCTV cameras on the walls, and, she said, hidden ones in places she did not know about until later. After the incident, members of the composer’s family worked to discredit her, including, she said, by accusing her of theft.

The pattern, in her telling, was deliberate. The composer first presented himself as a mentor, built emotional dependency through her professional vulnerability, then layered financial control on top: borrowing money from her, withholding payments she was owed, isolating her until walking away felt impossible. She called him a serial abuser and said she has since received messages from multiple women describing the same playbook against them. She also said she had personally seen the studio’s hidden cameras used to record women, and even children visiting the space, treated by him as routine.

The aftermath was severe. She has spoken about a long stretch of dissociation and depression, of feeling that the parts of her body the composer had touched should not exist. She consulted lawyers at the time but did not file a formal complaint, citing fear and a lack of institutional support. Therapy and her sister kept her steady through the worst of it. She has since left Chennai, stepped away from playback singing, and now lives in Rishikesh, where she runs her own business.

She has not named the composer publicly. “I do not want to say his name now,” she told Vikatan. “When the time comes, I will say it.” In the same conversation she said she now intends to pursue formal legal action, framing it not as revenge but as deterrence: “I will definitely do it legally, so that no other woman goes through this.” MovieCrow, which carried a longer breakdown of the Sivasankari Talks interview, reported the same intent.

The interview has not, at the time of writing, prompted any public response from a named composer. The only person on the record about the alleged events is Swagatha herself.