Deepika Padukone: From Mental Health Advocacy to 82°E

Deepika Padukone's business life has two threads that start from the same place: her own health and habits. One is the Live Love Laugh Foundation, a mental health charity she set up in 2015. The other is 82°E, a self-care brand that began with skincare in November 2022. This piece sets out what each organisation says about itself and what independent outlets reported.

Why she started the foundation

On its website, the Live Love Laugh Foundation says it arose from her personal journey with anxiety and depression. In a statement published there, Padukone recalls waking on 15 Feb. 2014 with "a hollow feeling in my stomach", feeling empty and directionless. She writes that her mother recognised something was wrong and insisted she seek professional help, and that she was diagnosed with anxiety and depression.

She credits her family, a counsellor and a psychiatrist for her recovery. She adds that, as she learned about the stigma around mental illness, she felt "a deep need to save at least one life", which led her to speak publicly and found the charity. Wikipedia notes that she spoke about overcoming depression in a 2015 interview and formed the foundation that October.

The launch

The Quint reported that she launched the foundation at Hotel Palladium in Mumbai on World Mental Health Day, Oct. 10, 2015. The report lists guests including her parents, Prakash and Ujjala Padukone, Kiran Rao, Gauri Shinde, Nita Ambani, Prasoon Joshi, Vidhu Vinod Chopra and Shoojit Sircar. Padukone said the team had expected to launch the following year but chose World Mental Health Day instead.

The foundation says its aim is to create awareness, reduce stigma and provide credible mental health resources, working through partnerships. Its chairperson is the psychiatrist Dr. Shyam Bhat, and its board page lists Biocon's Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw. Wikipedia says the work earned her the World Economic Forum's Crystal Award in 2018.

A school programme and its reach

The foundation's site carries testimonials from partners. One organisation says it has worked with the foundation since 2017 on a programme called You Are Not Alone and has reached more than 5,000 students and 300 teachers. That figure is a partner's statement on the foundation's own page, not an audited number, so we attribute it and do not treat it as independent.

Then 82°E

In November 2022 Padukone launched 82°E. A release carried by GlobeNewswire, as summarised in search results, describes it as a self-care brand that starts with skincare and combines traditional Indian ingredients with scientific compounds. Its first products were a moisturiser called Ashwagandha Bounce and a sunscreen called Patchouli Glow SPF 40. We could read only the summary of that release, so product claims are the company's.

The launch was not her first line. Wikipedia records that she launched a clothing line for women with Van Heusen in 2013 and, two years later, a brand called All About You with Myntra. It also says she invests in startups through her company, Ka Enterprises.

Two separate organisations

We found no statement that 82°E funds the foundation, so we do not say so. Treat them as separate organisations that share a founder.

Endorsements in context

Wikipedia lists endorsements including Tissot, Maybelline, Coca-Cola and L'Oréal Paris, and says Business Standard reported in 2014 that she earned Rs 5 to 6 crore per endorsement deal. That is an older press estimate and we have not verified it.

What we could not confirm

We could not read the 82°E launch release in full, so the product details come from a search summary. We did not find independent sales figures for the brand. We could not verify the partner reach figures beyond the foundation's own page, and we found no source linking the brand's revenue to the foundation.

Sources

*Cover photo: Laura Lee Dooley from Arlington, VA, USA, Wikimedia Commons, *[*https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SLAMtheTour_20Sep2014_%28311%29_%2815143465679%29.jpg*](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SLAMtheTour_20Sep2014_%28311%29_%2815143465679%29.jpg)* (CC BY 2.0).*