Rashmika-Vijay wedding — And Bollywood’s Busiest Year Still Waits for Her

Today is February 26, 2026, and as of this morning, Rashmika Mandanna is no longer just India’s National Crush — she is Vijay Deverakonda’s wife. The ceremony took place at ITC Mementos in Udaipur at approximately 8 AM in a traditional Andhra wedding witnessed by family members, close friends, and a handful of Telugu film industry figures — exactly the small, private, deliberately unspectacular event the couple had described in their announcement four days ago. A second ceremony following Rashmika’s Kodava traditions from Coorg is scheduled for later today, after which the couple will host a grand Hyderabad reception for the broader film industry on March 4. The story of VIROSH — the fan-coined portmanteau that became the official name of their wedding — formally closed its first chapter this morning under a Rajasthan sky, and what opens now is a professional calendar so packed that even a honeymoon is reportedly being postponed around shooting schedules.

Who She Was Before She Was Mrs. Deverakonda

Rashmika Mandanna was born on April 5, 1996, in Virajpet, a coffee plantation town in the Kodagu district of Karnataka — not the kind of place that produces film stars on any regular schedule. Her father Madan Mandanna worked in local entertainment, her mother Suman Mandanna ran the household, and nothing about her upbringing had the industry access that most pan-India stars describe when they trace their origins. She went to Mysore for college — Sri Dharmasthala Manjunatheshwara College, where she was studying psychology when a modelling assignment came through — and the Coca-Cola advertisement that followed led to a Kannada film offer that she approached with the practical unsentimental logic of someone who had not been dreaming about cinema since childhood. Kirik Party (2016), directed by Rishab Shetty — later the director of Kantara — was a campus drama that ran for over 100 days in Karnataka theatres and made her the most visible new face in Kannada cinema almost overnight. She won the SIIMA Award for Best Female Debut and the Filmfare Award South for Best Female Debut across her first eighteen months of working — a double recognition that gave the Telugu film industry sufficient reason to come calling.
The first real controversy of her public life arrived before Kirik Party even released, when her engagement to director Rishab Shetty became publicly known and then publicly ended. She has never spoken about it in detail, which is itself a form of dignity — she moved forward, changed industries, and built a career so large that the engagement note became a biographical footnote rather than a defining fact. Telugu films followed quickly: Chalo (2018) and Geetha Govindam (2018) with Vijay Deverakonda, the latter earning ₹2.36 billion and introducing both of them to an audience whose affection for their on-screen chemistry would eventually, six years later, become investment in their real-world love story.

The Career That Made Every Industry Pay Attention

The film that changed everything structurally was Pushpa: The Rise (2021). She played Srivalli — a village woman of fierce emotional independence — and the song that carried her name became one of the most recreated audio clips in Indian social media history. The dubbed Hindi version on OTT introduced her to 400 million viewers who had no prior frame of reference for her work, and by the time Pushpa 2: The Rule arrived in December 2024 with its ₹18.31 billion worldwide gross, Srivalli had become as culturally embedded in the Indian popular imagination as Pushpa Raj himself. She won the SIIMA Award for Best Actress for her Pushpa 2 performance and received her biggest individual recognition to date when Allu Arjun publicly described her as the emotional core of everything the franchise means.
Between the two Pushpa films she built a parallel Hindi career of remarkable commercial consistency. Mission Majnu (2023) with Sidharth Malhotra gave her the first genuine dramatic challenge in Hindi cinema — a visually impaired woman married to a spy operating in Cold War Pakistan — and she handled its emotional and physical specificity with enough skill to shift industry conversations about her range. Animal (December 2023), directed by Sandeep Reddy Vanga with Ranbir Kapoor, earned ₹9 billion worldwide and positioned her inside the Hindi film industry’s biggest commercial conversation of that year, even if the role of Geetanjali — devoted and unconditionally loving — drew criticism for offering limited agency. Chhaava (February 2025), the Maratha period epic with Vicky Kaushal as Chhatrapati Sambhaji Maharaj, earned ₹9 billion worldwide and gave her the first real historical character of her career — Maharani Yesubai, documented in Maratha records, whose dignity and restraint required something quieter and more grounded than the expressiveness her earlier roles had demanded. Sikandar (Eid 2025) with Salman Khan and Kuberaa (June 2025) with Dhanush added further commercial weight. The Girlfriend (November 2025), a female-centric drama directed by Rahul Ravindran, gave her a role the industry had not yet seen from her — the entire film resting on her performance alone, without any male franchise or spectacle providing structural support — and it earned the strongest individual critical response of her career to date. Across 2023 to 2025 alone, she appeared in films that collectively crossed ₹35 billion at the worldwide box office.​

The Woman Behind the National Crush Title

The “National Crush” label arrived through a combination of her social media presence — 49 million Instagram followers as of early 2026 — and a quality in her public persona that is genuinely difficult to manufacture: an openness that reads as complete absence of performance. She laughs too easily, cries too visibly, and shares too honestly for someone managing a ₹66 crore net worth and a career that spans five language industries. Brands pay heavily for exactly this quality — her endorsement portfolio includes Malabar Gold, Swarovski India, Plum vegan skincare, and over a dozen consumer and lifestyle brands, with per-deal fees in the several-crore range and an annual endorsement income estimated at ₹20–25 crore. Her investment in Plum positions her as a genuine stakeholder in the sustainable beauty market rather than simply a face on a billboard. Her real estate holdings — a Bangalore bungalow and properties in Mumbai, Hyderabad, Goa, and Coorg — reflect both her multi-city professional footprint and a deliberate approach to asset-building that most actresses do not formalise until significantly later in their careers.
Her estimated net worth of ₹66 crore is, by most industry measures, a significant undervaluation of her actual market position — it does not fully reflect the post-Chhaava fee escalation, the Pushpa 2 profit-sharing arrangements, or the brand value accretion from a calendar year in which she appeared in five major films across three languages. The number will read differently by December 2026 when Cocktail 2 and Mysaa have both released.​

Today’s Wife, Tomorrow’s Warrior — the Films That 2026 and Beyond Are Built Around

Cocktail 2 (second half of 2026) is directed by Homi Adajania — the same director who handled the original 2012 Cocktail with Deepika Padukone — and stars Rashmika alongside Shahid Kapoor and Kriti Sanon in a modern romantic comedy that borrows the love triangle architecture of the original and updates it for a contemporary context. Shooting is already complete for portions filmed in Italy and Europe, and the film is targeting a September 2026 release. The cultural weight of stepping into the Veronica role that made Deepika Padukone critically relevant in 2012 is not lost on either the producers or Rashmika herself, who has spoken about the pressure of inheriting a character that audiences remember with specific emotional attachment.
Mysaa (2026), directed by Rawindra Pulle, is the most physically ambitious project of her career — she plays a Gond tribal warrior queen in a period action drama that the first look teaser revealed as a complete visual departure from everything she has done before. The fierce, uncompromising avatar in the first look poster answered years of criticism that she was too soft for roles requiring genuine physical authority. Ranabaali (September 2026) is a historical drama that further reinforces the period film direction her post-Chhaava career has taken. Animal Park — the sequel to Animal — is in development with Sandeep Reddy Vanga and Ranbir Kapoor, with a release timeline not yet confirmed. Pushpa 3: The Rampage is confirmed for 2028, with producer Naveen Yerneni stating that Srivalli’s role will be substantially expanded — acknowledging in the process that the franchise’s emotional coherence depends on what happens between Pushpa and Srivalli as much as what happens between Pushpa and the red sandalwood cartel.
She married this morning. Her next film shoots before the month ends. The girl from Virajpet has not slowed down for anything — not a national crush title, not a controversy, not a pandemic, and as of today, not even a wedding.