Born to actress Moon Moon Sen and Bharat Dev Verma on the 24th of January, 1981, in Kolkata, Riya is the younger of the two siblings. Her elder sister Raima, is also a budding Bollywood actress. She completed her graduation from the Rani Birla College, Kolkata.� Her maternal grandmother, Suchitra Sen was one of the most sought after actresses of her times.
Who can forget the young and innocent Riya in the Tamil flick, “Taj Mahal” by Bharathi Raja?! She also featured in popular music videos like Jagjit Singh-Asha Bhonsle’s “Jab Saamne Tum” and “Kahin Kahin Se” and Phalguni Pathak’s “Yaad Piya Ki Aane Lagi”. This made her extremely famous in the indipop circuit.
Riya ventured into commercial Hindi films with her debut film “Style” directed by N Chandra. This movie turned out to be a disaster at the box office. But Riya was far from being shattered. She did quite a few films after that like “Dil Vil Pyaar Vyaar”, “Jhankar Beats”, “Qayamat”, “Plan”, “Dil Ne Jise Apna Kaha”and “Shaadi No. 1”. None of the films went above the average mark.
In her latest flick “Apna Sapna Money Money”, Riya has tried to give her screen image a makeover. In this comedy movie, she has portrayed the character of a girl next door, unlike her sex siren image.
Very recently, Riya shocked music director Biddu and others by not showing up at a music release of her own video, “Shut Up and Dance”! She was supposed to inaugurate the album, but when two hours passed and she showed no signs of arriving, they went ahead with the release. Her co-star Sameer Hans was equally surprised by her absence.
Riya was also caught up in a nude MMS controversy along with Ashmit Patel. But she has very calmly come out of it saying that she is innocent and that her well wishers will always support her at such a time of crisis.
Well, we hope that Riya does more of quality films and gives all the gossipmongers a run for words.