New Delhi:
Weeks after billionaire tech entrepreneur Prasanna Sankar accused his estranged wife of harassment amid a bitter divorce and a battle for custody of their son, she has hit back with allegations that her husband solicited sex workers and forced her to accept an open marriage.
Rippling co-founder Sankar, who is worth $1.3 billion according to a recent estimate by Forbes, made headlines after he took to X recently claiming he was “on the run” from Chennai law enforcement after his wife Dhivya Sashidhar had filed a complaint alleging that he “kidnapped” their son. He alleged that cops were tracking his cell phone location, car, UPI, and IP address “illegally without any FIR”. He also claimed Sashidhar had an extramarital affair while he tried to fight for the custody of their son.
His wife’s account paints a very different picture–one where Sankar solicited sex workers, pressured Sashidhar into accepting an open marriage and installed hidden cameras in their house to spy on her. She backed up her story with hundreds of pages of court documents from their international custody battle along with emails, photos, and other records, according to a report by The San Francisco Standard.
She also gave an interview to the publication claiming Sankar dragged her and their 9-year-old son from country to country to shield his immense wealth from taxation.
Sashidhar also claimed she gave up her career for her husband.
“THE NIGHTMARE”
Describing her ordeal of being controlled by her husband, Sashidhar said it was the “worst nightmare of my life.” She told The San Francisco Standard that Sankar coerced her into “painful sex” soon after she gave birth in 2016, claiming it was a “primal need” for men. When she refused, Sankar threatened consequences.
“Prasanna would come and tell me, ‘Look, sex is a primal need for me. You have to do it. It doesn’t matter, like, you know, how much pain you’re in,” Sashidhar revealed.
“He would literally, like, tell me that, you know, ‘If you don’t do it, then I want to go outside and get it,” she added.
The report cited a December 2019 email to Sashidhar, where Sankar told her about contacting several escorts to ask for photos and rates, before getting cold feet.
“I’m super sorry for the stress this put on our marriage. I promise to never put our marriage in this position again,” he wrote. In another email the same day, Sankar proposed an open marriage.
Sankar, in an email to The San Francisco Standard, said his marriage was “sexless” at the time he proposed open marriage, and that he “had several conversations with her to understand why this was the case.”
“I once in a moment of anger discussed about opening up the marriage to other sexual partners,” he wrote. “We agreed not to do it.”
THEIR STORY
The pair met in 2007 and started dating two years later. Both Sankar and Sashidhar were high-achieving meritorious individuals. The two maintained a long-distance relationship for several years while Sankar worked in Silicon Valley building a social media platform for anonymous flirting – which eventually flopped – and Sashidhar pursued higher education at the University of Cambridge.
They reunited in 2013 while Sashidhar was in the Netherlands, where she was working for Shell. They decided to marry despite Sashidhar’s family’s apprehensions. Sankar convinced them with an elaborate engagement proposal on his knees.
Sankar returned to San Francisco in 2015, where he joined a healthcare startup as director of engineering. In 2017, a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation found that the company was misleading investors, following which Sankar resigned.
In early 2017, he co-founded his startup Rippling, which provided businesses a single platform for running human resources, devices, and finances. Forbes noted Sankar’s billionaire status by 2022, and per reports, he owns 9 per cent of Rippling’s stake.
His colleagues described him as a “coding god” and “a wildly good engineer”, but his wife claimed he was neglectful at home. In court transcripts, Sashidhar claimed Sankar was “very neglectful” as a husband and father.
“He would come back home, and he would sit with his laptop…When he comes, we had a restricted, small amount of time,” Sashidhar testified.
She added that despite limited time, Sankar always demanded sex from her.
TAX EVASION ALLEGATIONS
In 2020, Sashidhar claimed that Sankar moved the family to Washington state. In her testimony, Sashidhar said Sankar expected the substantial sum of Rippling shares he’d received at the founding of the company to vest and wanted to dodge California income tax.
During this time, Sashidhar was reportedly working for Microsoft as a senior program manager. She told the court that Sankar would pressure her into taking time off work for sex, reiterating his threat of finding other partners if she failed to comply.
They stayed in Washington for two years, after which Sankar moved the family to Singapore. According to Sashidhar’s testimony, Sankar did this because he wanted to route some of his assets outside the US back to himself without attracting tax authorities.
Sankar also acknowledged in court that there were family assets stashed in American Samoa and Saint Kitts and Nevis, and that he thought it was wasteful for the family to pay US taxes, which was a reason for their move.
Before moving, he also changed his visa status to avoid paying exit tax on unrealized capital gains from Rippling.
After moving to Singapore, Sashidhar lost her job and was unable to work while on a dependent visa through Sankar.
Troubles escalated for the couple following this, as Sankar would often tell his wife that she was entitled to none of his money, the report said.
Sashidhar also claimed that while she stayed at home and took care of their son, Sankar fell into what she called a “crowd of high-society hedonists” and engaged in “frivolous sexual behaviour with many partners/sex workers.”
She claimed that Sankar would also encourage her to have sex with his friends, which she refused. It left her “scared,” “violated,” and “destroyed”, she testified.
“That was where, like, you know, our marriage broke,” she added.
TECHIE’S ALLEGATIONS
Sankar has claimed that his wife was having an affair, following which they were going through a divorce. They were negotiating the terms of the divorce settlement, over which she was unhappy, he claimed.
He also alleged that his wife “abducted” their young son and took him to the US, forcing him to file an international child abduction case, but the US court ruled in his favour, leading to the signing of an understanding between the two parties.
Under the terms of the agreement, Sankar had to pay his wife around Rs 9 crore and Rs 4.3 lakh per month and share joint custody of their son.
Following this, Sashidhar negotiated with him to come to Chennai and share their son’s custody, which did happen for some time, he claimed.
However, tensions escalated between the two when his wife refused to comply with the said understanding, especially over depositing their child’s passport in a shared locker.
This resulted in further legal battle with Sankar approaching the courts, saying he would only share custody of their son when his passport was deposited in the locker. He claimed that she did not attend the court hearing and instead filed a police complaint against him.
Fearing wrongful arrest, the techie fled with his son as the police knocked on their door.
According to Sankar, he even provided the police proof that his son was safe and “happy”, but the police continued to search for him.
