Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], August 12 (ANI): Mini Mathur is in her 50s, and she couldn’t be prouder of the phase of life she finds herself in today. Many remember her as one of MTV’s most popular VJs in the late ’90s. Cut to 2026, and she has now found a whole new audience among Gen Z, who know her as the winner of Prime Video’s reality show ‘Alliance’.
With her win, she hopes to inspire people, especially women, to believe that they can do it all, regardless of their age and what others think about them.
Speaking with ANI, Mini expressed, “I just like to say that I have never experienced the kind of love that I am getting with just winning a reality show despite having had a lot of validation in my career for so many years, and I’m very grateful to the younger audiences who are finding me interesting and my strategy so appealing and everything.”
“And I hope that you look at women in a different light because of this. I hope you don’t write off people because of their age. I hope you don’t write off women who you think would be unfit or weak because at any age you can bring your body and your health and your mind back to when you were 20, and I hope I’m a little bit inspirational and living proof of that fact,” Mini added.
For Mini, Alliance came as a breath of fresh air. At one point, she felt that “television was over for her” because she “did not want to keep doing the same things again and again.”
“I’ve never had self-doubt. Yes, everybody I think, suffers from some amount of imposter syndrome in everything they do, but I have actually changed directions in many ways. I’ve started my own women’s health platform. Two years ago, I studied women’s health for menopause, and then I started Pauseitive. But I was at a point where I felt that television was over for me because I did not want to go on doing the same things again and again, reinventing the wheel. You know, I’ve done enough reality shows, enough game shows as a host that you know, something that has been there, done that, I didn’t want to do again. So this show came as a breath of fresh air,” she shared.
Mini admitted that she had said “no” to many reality shows in the past, but ‘Alliance’ was an exception, as its concept really appealed to her.
“I’ve said no to many reality shows because I did not feel that I fit into that stereotype. But Alliance was different because when they explained that it was about the game and it was about the strategy around the games, it felt like something new. And the way that they spoke to me about it and the creative head of the show Priya Bhave, was somebody I’ve worked with on Indian Idol for many years. And she said ‘No, Mini, I’m telling you this is for you and I am convinced that you will really be you’ll really enjoy it’,” Mini said.
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The former Indian Idol host feels her win has proved that there’s space to write characters like her and create shows around people like her, who bring real value to the table, perhaps even more so now that she’s reached a certain age.
“So I just went blind into it. And yes, I was ready for something new because I’ve done everything, I’m bored. If you want me you know and now I’ve discovered a whole new audience who did not even know about my MTV days or what I’ve done in my past. So all these Gen-Zs and the millennials who are suddenly finding so much interest in me and saying ‘Oh my god she’s amazing, where was she all this while?’ I was like ‘I was not under a rock, I was right here’,” she said.
“But people have to make shows where they showcase 50-year-old women in this light. You can’t give me a side role or a side character in a show or you know give me like half-assed shows. I hope this has proved to all the makers that you can write in characters like me or make shows around people like me who will bring value to the table and even more value now that I’m, you know, a certain age,” Mini emphasised. (ANI)
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