Rakul Preet Singh is an Indian actress and model who works predominantly in Telugu, Hindi, and Tamil cinema alongside Kannada films. Born on October 10, 1990, in New Delhi into a Punjabi Sikh family to Army officer Rajender Singh and Kulwinder Singh, she completed her schooling at Army Public School, Dhaula Kuan, and graduated with a Bachelor of Science (Honours) in Mathematics from Jesus and Mary College, University of Delhi. An active national-level golf player during her youth, she began modeling in college and participated in the Femina Miss India 2011 pageant, placing fifth and winning five sub-titles including Miss India People's Choice. She made her acting debut in the Kannada film *Gilli* (2009) before entering Telugu cinema with *Keratam* (2011) and Tamil cinema with *Thadaiyara Thaakka* (2012). Rakul achieved her career breakthrough in Telugu cinema with Merlapaka Gandhi's commercial hit *Venkatadri Express* (2013), earning her first nomination for the Filmfare Award for Best Actress – Telugu. She made her Hindi starring debut in Divya Khosla Kumar's *Yaariyan* (2014) and established herself as one of Telugu cinema's leading and most sought-after actresses with consecutive box-office hits, including *Loukyam* (2014), *Current Theega* (2014), *Pandaga Chesko* (2015), *Kick 2* (2015), and *Bruce Lee: The Fighter* (2015). She solidified her top-tier commercial status headlining high-profile blockbusters opposite major stars, including Sukumar's *Nannaku Prematho* (2016) opposite Jr. NTR, Boyapati Srinu's *Sarrainodu* (2016) alongside Allu Arjun, Surender Reddy's *Dhruva* (2016) with Ram Charan, *Rarandoi Veduka Chudham* (2017), *Jaya Janaki Nayaka* (2017), and A. R. Murugadoss's bilingual thriller *Spyder* (2017) opposite Mahesh Babu. She also won widespread critical acclaim in Tamil cinema for H. Vinoth's action thriller *Theeran Adhigaaram Ondru* (2017) opposite Karthi. Expanding prominently into Hindi cinema and pan-Indian projects, Rakul achieved major box-office and streaming success with the romantic comedy *De De Pyaar De* (2019) alongside Ajay Devgn, followed by *Marjaavaan* (2019), *Attack* (2022), *Runway 34* (2022) with Amitabh Bachchan, *Doctor G* (2022) opposite Ayushmann Khurrana, *Thank God* (2022), and the social comedy-drama *Chhatriwali* (2023). She returned to South cinema starring in Krish Jagarlamudi's *Konda Polam* (2021), R. Ravikumar's Tamil sci-fi hit *Ayalaan* (2024) opposite Sivakarthikeyan, and S. Shankar's vigilante action sequel *Indian 2* (2024) alongside Kamal Haasan. Her filmography extends to Mudassar Aziz's comedy *Mere Husband Ki Biwi* (2025) alongside Arjun Kapoor and Bhumi Pednekar, the romantic comedy sequel *De De Pyaar De 2* (2025), *Pati Patni Aur Woh Do* (2026), and portraying Surpanakha in Nitesh Tiwari's multi-part mythological epic *Ramayana: Part 1* (2026).
