Actor Lakshmi Manchu had a rough Thursday after her Instagram account was hacked and used to promote a fraudulent money scheme via her Stories. The actor confirmed the breach on X (formerly Twitter), admitting she initially kept calm—until it seemed to be tied to financial fraud.

Speaking about the ordeal, Lakshmi told us, “The app keeps kicking me out every time I try to log in. Instagram isn’t recognising my face. At first, I thought, ‘Oh well, maybe it’s time,’ but I panicked when it looked like someone could lose money because of this. I only hope nobody did.”

She quickly looped in authorities. “The cybercrime department is already working on it. I’ve submitted all details. I also had my friends post alerts and tweeted the news myself. The hackers changed my password and accessed my email and phone number. I had bells, whistles, and unicorns in that password—if that’s not safe, what is?”

Manchu shared that the investigation has made progress. “They’ve traced the hack back to Nigeria. I even got a message asking if I had issues with my account and to click on a help link—but thankfully, I didn’t fall for it. I blocked the sender right away and reported it to Instagram. Now, I’m just waiting as they try to recover my account.”

While she’s worried about potential access to personal data, she remains grounded. “We’re celebrities but also just like everyone else—we use two-factor authentication like any business would. Phones and emails carry everything. I hope they haven’t gone further than the email address.”

Interestingly, she’s not overly stressed about losing access to her social media presence. “I didn’t think twice about that. I thought, maybe it’s a sign. If I had a movie out, maybe I’d be panicking. But right now, I see it as a digital detox—God’s way of saying, ‘enough’.”