She wanted to be a veterinarian. Instead, she became one of the most recognized faces on Indian television. Simran Budharup, born on August 3, 1997, in Mumbai, is 28 years old in 2026. Most people know her as Rishita from Pandya Store, the role that turned her into a household name.
But her story goes far beyond one character, and understanding it fully means going back to a hip-hop dance class where everything changed by accident.
From a supporting role in a supernatural thriller to playing a complex antagonist on Zee TV’s iconic Kumkum Bhagya, Simran Budharup has built a career that reflects real range.
She has been open about her personal life, her anxiety, her breakup, and her ambitions in a way that few Indian television actresses have matched. This is the complete picture.
Quick Facts: Simran Budharup at a Glance
| Detail | Information |
| Full Name | Simran Budharup |
| Date of Birth | August 3, 1997 |
| Age (2026) | 28 years old |
| Birthplace | Mumbai, Maharashtra, India |
| Zodiac Sign | Leo |
| Height | 5 feet 4 inches (163 cm) |
| Weight | Approximately 50 kg |
| Education | Bachelor’s in Media Studies, Mumbai University |
| Father | Harminder Budharup |
| Mother | Rajesh Budharup |
| Sibling | Khushi Budharup (sister) |
| Relationship Status | Single (as of 2026) |
| Profession | Television Actress, Social Media Influencer |
| Debut Show | Parvarrish: Season 2 (2015) |
| Notable Role | Rishita Seth in Pandya Store (Star Plus) |
| Current Show | Kumkum Bhagya (Zee TV) |
| @simranbudharup | |
| Estimated Net Worth | $800,000 to $1 million (approx.) |
How Simran Budharup Accidentally Became an Actress
Most career stories in Bollywood involve someone desperate to make it. Simran Budharup’s story is different. She was studying to become a veterinarian when acting found her, not the other way around.
She had joined a hip-hop dance class in Mumbai. A fellow student there, already working in the industry, noticed her and suggested she audition for a television role. Simran was skeptical. She had no acting training, no industry contacts, and no real plan to pursue it. But she went to the audition anyway. She cracked the role on her second attempt.
That role was in Parvarrish: Season 2 on Sony Entertainment Television. It aired in 2015 and 2016. Simran has spoken candidly about how raw she was on that set. When a director asked her to give a reaction in her very first scene, she genuinely asked a co-actor what “reaction” meant in the context of acting. She was learning everything from zero.
What That Starting Point Says About Her
That level of honesty is rare. Simran Budharup did not walk onto a set polished and prepared. She built her craft in real time, learning from established actors around her, show by show. She is also a trained Bharatanatyam dancer and studied hip-hop, which gave her a physical expressiveness that translated well to the screen even before she understood how to act in a technical sense.
The starting point matters because it explains the arc. Someone who figures out acting entirely on the job, across five years and multiple shows, develops a different kind of instinct than someone trained formally. That instinct is visible in the performances that eventually made Simran Budharup famous.
Simran Budharup’s Career: Show by Show
Nazar (2018): The Supernatural Thriller That Put Her on the Map
Simran Budharup joined the cast of Nazar on Star Plus in 2018, playing the character Saavi Sharma. The show was a supernatural thriller, and it required a different kind of performance than straight family drama. Saavi was not a simple character, and holding her own in a genre-driven show helped Simran build credibility as a versatile performer.
Nazar ran successfully on Star Plus and developed a dedicated following. For Simran, it was the show that moved her from “supporting cast” to someone audiences remembered by name.
Durga: Mata Ki Chhaya (2020): Testing Versatility
In 2020, Simran took on the role of Tara Aneja in Durga: Mata Ki Chhaya, produced by Rashmi Sharma Productions. The show gave her a different emotional register to work with. The character of Tara was distinct from what she had done before. Working with actor Avinash Mishra on the show added to her on-set learning and extended her portfolio beyond the supernatural into broader drama.
Fuh Se Fantasy (2019): The Web Series Detour
Before web series became standard for every Indian television actor, Simran Budharup appeared in Fuh Se Fantasy, a web series that explored romance and relationships with a more contemporary tone. In 2024, Indian streaming platforms hosted over 600 original web series, according to data from FICCI-EY’s Media and Entertainment Report. Simran’s early willingness to work in that format showed she was not limiting herself to one medium.
Pandya Store (2021 to 2024): The Role That Changed Everything
How Rishita Seth Became a Cultural Touchstone
Pandya Store premiered on Star Plus in January 2021 and ran for over 800 episodes. Simran Budharup played Rishita Seth, later known as Rishita Dev Pandya. The character was a modern, sharp-tongued, emotionally layered woman navigating a joint family setup in Gujarat.
Rishita was not soft-spoken or traditionally compliant. She had opinions. She had a materialistic edge. She argued, she loved fiercely, and she struggled authentically. That combination resonated with audiences who were tired of passive female characters in Indian prime-time television. Her on-screen chemistry with co-star Akshay Kharodia, who played Dev Pandya, became one of the most talked-about pairings of the show’s run.
Simran Budharup herself called Pandya Store the “game-changing” show of her career in a 2024 interview with Pinkvilla. That is not an overstatement. It is the show that made her face recognizable in millions of Indian households. It is the show people still associate with her name first.
What Made Rishita Work as a Character
The character succeeded because Simran brought something personal to it. In multiple interviews, she acknowledged that parts of Rishita reflected her real personality: the directness, the emotional honesty, the refusal to pretend everything is fine when it is not. When an actor’s real self overlaps with a character’s texture, the performance becomes something audiences feel rather than just watch. Fans of Pandya Store sensed that authenticity, and the response showed.
Kumkum Bhagya (2023 to Present): The Villain Turn
Why Playing Khushi Kohli Was a Conscious Career Choice
When Simran Budharup joined Kumkum Bhagya on Zee TV in late 2023, she took on the role of Khushi Kohli, a character positioned as an antagonist in the show’s post-leap generation. Kumkum Bhagya is one of the longest-running television dramas in India, created by Ekta Kapoor and produced by Balaji Telefilms. It has maintained audience loyalty since its 2014 launch.
Simran had publicly expressed a wish to play a negative character before this role came to her. When the offer arrived, she described it as something she had “manifested.” That detail is worth noting because it reflects how she approaches her career: with intention, not just opportunity.
Playing an antagonist after years of playing a beloved character required a deliberate shift. In an interview with TellyChakkar around the time of her entry into Kumkum Bhagya, Simran acknowledged that Rishita would take time to leave her system. Five years of playing one character builds deep muscle memory. Choosing to disrupt that muscle memory on purpose is an act of creative confidence.
The Real Simran Budharup: Personal Life, Breakup, and Mental Health
The Relationship With Aashutosh Semwal
Most celebrity biography articles handle personal life in a paragraph and move on. Simran Budharup’s approach to her own personal life deserves more attention than that, because she has spoken about it with unusual honesty.
She was in a relationship with actor Aashutosh Semwal, known for the film Virgin Bhanupriya, for approximately five years. They lived together for a significant portion of that time. In September 2023, Simran confirmed in interviews with ETimes TV and Pinkvilla that the relationship had ended. She did not blame him publicly. She described the split as the result of recurring recurring issues that neither of them could resolve.
The detail she shared that caught people’s attention was about their dog. The couple co-parented a pet, which meant they remained in contact even after the breakup. For many people watching from the outside, that small, specific detail made the relationship feel real. Not a celebrity couple, but two people who had built a life together and were now figuring out how to step back from it.
Simran Budharup Speaks About Anxiety
After the breakup, Simran talked openly about the anxiety it triggered. She said she usually moved from one relationship to another after a split, but this time she recognized that she needed to stop and recover properly first.
That level of self-awareness, and the willingness to discuss it publicly, is not something you see often from Indian television actors in their mid-twenties. Anxiety affects a large portion of the entertainment industry globally.
The FICCI-EY 2023 report on India’s media sector noted growing attention to mental health among young professionals in the creative industries. Simran naming her experience publicly, without dramatizing it, helped normalize a conversation that still carries stigma in many parts of Indian society.
The Lalbaugcha Raja Incident: When She Called Out Mistreatment
In 2024, Simran Budharup visited Mumbai’s famous Lalbaugcha Raja Ganesh pandal and was treated poorly by the event’s staff. She shared a detailed account of the experience on Instagram, describing the staff behavior as “unacceptable” and “really disheartening.” She did not stay quiet to protect her public image. She named the problem directly.
This willingness to speak up, whether about personal pain or public mistreatment, is a consistent thread across Simran Budharup’s public persona. It is part of why her following connects with her as a real person rather than just a screen personality.
The TikTok Era: How Social Media Built a Second Audience
Before TikTok was banned in India in June 2020, Simran Budharup had built a following that many established television actors had not managed to replicate. She amassed over 1.9 million fans on the platform and accumulated over 36 million hearts across her content.
Her mix of comedy sketches, lip-sync videos, and personality-driven clips connected with a younger audience that did not necessarily watch prime-time television.
Think about what that crossover meant in practical terms. A teenager in Pune following Simran’s TikTok comedy in 2019 might not have been watching Nazar on Star Plus. But they knew her face, her energy, and her humor. When Pandya Store launched in 2021, some of that social media audience made the jump to television specifically because of her.
After TikTok’s ban in India, Simran Budharup shifted that energy to Instagram Reels, where she has maintained a following of over 390,000 as of 2026. She uses the platform for behind-the-scenes content, brand collaborations, and direct engagement with fans.
The Unique Angle Nobody Else Is Covering: Simran Budharup as a Case Study in Unplanned Success
What Happens When You Don’t Plan Your Career
Most articles about Simran Budharup list her shows and move on. Almost none of them ask the more interesting question: what does her career tell us about how Indian television actually works?
She did not come through a film family. She did not win a reality show. She was not a trained actor who knocked on studio doors for years. She discovered acting by accident through a dance class, cracked her first audition almost immediately, and spent years building her skill entirely on the job.
That pattern, unplanned entry followed by deliberate growth, is more common in Indian television than the industry narrative usually admits. The shows that run for 800-plus episodes rely on actors who can learn fast, adapt daily, and deliver consistent emotional performances under production schedules that are unlike anything in film. Simran Budharup did all of that without the head start.
Her stated goal now is to move into web series and films. She said in her 2024 Pinkvilla interview: “I don’t have a chance for anything else right now. Definitely after this, I am planning to get into the web and movies.”
That ambition, coming after she has already built a significant television career on her own terms, positions Simran Budharup as someone worth watching beyond the shows she is currently known for.
Family, Interests, and What Simran Budharup Is Like Off-Screen
Simran Budharup grew up in a close-knit Mumbai family. Her father, Harminder Budharup, is a businessman. Her mother, Rajesh Budharup, manages the household. Her younger sister, Khushi Budharup, is a frequent presence on her social media and often appears in Simran’s posts.
She describes her family as the grounding force in her life, particularly during the turbulent period following her breakup. In an industry where it is easy to lose perspective amid constant public attention, having a stable family foundation has clearly served her well.
She is a trained Bharatanatyam dancer. She has studied hip-hop. She enjoys Indian traditional food, reportedly dislikes excessive partying, and uses social media actively but purposefully rather than compulsively.
She has spoken about wanting a quiet court marriage rather than a large ceremony if she ever gets married, which is a strikingly personal detail for a public figure to share openly.
FAQ: What People Actually Ask About Simran Budharup
How old is Simran Budharup in 2026?
Simran Budharup is 28 years old in 2026. She was born on August 3, 1997, in Mumbai, Maharashtra. Her birthday is in August, so she remains 28 for most of 2026.
What is Simran Budharup’s most famous role?
Her most recognized role is Rishita Seth in Pandya Store on Star Plus, which she played from 2021 to 2024 across more than 800 episodes. The character made her a household name across India.
Is Simran Budharup married?
No. Simran Budharup is not married as of 2026. She was previously in a five-year live-in relationship with actor Aashutosh Semwal, which ended in 2023. She is currently single and has stated she wants to take time for herself before entering a new relationship.
Who was Simran Budharup’s boyfriend?
Her publicly confirmed relationship was with actor Aashutosh Semwal, known for the 2020 film Virgin Bhanupriya. They dated for approximately five years and lived together before splitting in 2023.
What show is Simran Budharup currently in?
As of 2026, she plays Khushi Kohli in Kumkum Bhagya on Zee TV. This is her first significant negative character and represents a deliberate shift from the warm, emotional characters she previously played.
What is Simran Budharup’s height?
She stands 5 feet 4 inches tall, which is approximately 163 centimeters.
What is Simran Budharup’s net worth?
Her estimated net worth is between $800,000 and $1 million as of 2026. Her income comes from television acting fees, brand endorsements, Instagram collaborations, and event appearances.
Did Simran Budharup use TikTok?
Yes. Before TikTok was banned in India in 2020, Simran had accumulated over 1.9 million followers and 36 million hearts on the platform. Her comedy and lip-sync videos made her popular with a young digital audience. She has since migrated her content to Instagram Reels.
Why did Simran Budharup leave Pandya Store?
Pandya Store concluded its run in 2024 after more than 800 episodes. Simran moved on to Kumkum Bhagya, where she took on the role of Khushi Kohli. She has described Pandya Store as the defining show of her career.
Does Simran Budharup want to do films?
Yes. She has stated in interviews that after her current television commitments, she plans to explore web series and film projects. She views television as the foundation and wants to expand into other formats.
Conclusion
Simran Budharup’s story is a reminder that the most interesting careers rarely go according to plan. She set out to study veterinary medicine, stumbled into an audition, and built one of the more honest and openly human public personas in Indian television from there.
What makes her genuinely worth following is not just the roles she has played. It is how she has talked about her life: the anxiety, the breakup, the mistreatment at a public event, the desire to play a villain, the wish for a quiet courthouse wedding someday.
That transparency, consistent and unperformed, is rarer than talent. If you want to understand why she connects with audiences the way she does, look not only at her work in Indian television but at how she talks about living her life inside it.
Read More: Nicholai Sachdev Age, Biography & Life Story: Everything You Need to Know in 2026
