Rippling co-founder Prasanna Sankar and wife Dhivya Sashidhar.
Credit: X/@NCMIndiaa
Rippling co-founder Prasanna Sankar's wife Dhivya Sashidhar has accused him of coercing her into an open marriage, hiring escorts, and abusive behaviour amid their ongoing divorce and custody disputes.
In an interview with The San Francisco Standard, Shashidhar claimed that Sankar also installed spy cameras around their house and illegally videotaped her even in the bathroom. She also said he pressured her for sexual activity even though she was recovering from childbirth complications and if she refused, he threatened to seek intimacy outside the marriage.
Shashidhar substantiated her story with hundreds of pages of court documents from their international custody battle along with emails, photos, and other records, according to the report.
Calling it her "worst nightmare of her life," Sashidhar detailed her ordeal. She said that Sankar soon after she had had their first child forced her into "painful sex", claiming it was a "primal need" for men. If she refused he would threaten her.
She said, "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."
"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.
Referring to an email Sankar sent Sashidhar in December 2019, he told her about contacting multiple escorts to ask for photos and rates, before getting cold feet.
In the mail he wrote, "I'm super sorry for the stress this put on our marriage. I promise to never put our marriage in this position again." In another email the same day, Sankar proposed an open marriage.
Sankar, in an email to the publication, 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."
He wrote, "I once in a moment of anger discussed opening up the marriage to other sexual partners." "We agreed not to do it," he added.
Sankar and Sashidhar met as students at the National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli and married 10 years later and have a nine-year-old son.
After a few failed ventures, in 2017 he co-founded Rippling, as per the report he owns 9 per cent of stake in the company.
While he has been described as a "coding god" and "a wildly good engineer," Sashidhar said he was "very neglectful as a husband and father" in court.
"He would come back home, and he would sit with his laptop...When he came, we had a restricted, small amount of time," Sashidhar testified.
Going beyond their personal relationship, Sashidhar accused Sankar of moving their family between countries to evade taxes. First he moved to Washington to doge California income tax laws on the sum of Rippling shares he'd received at the founding of the company.
Sashidhar was reportedly working for Microsoft as a senior program manager at this time. She said that Sankar would pressure her into taking time off work for sex and threatening her if she didn't.
Then he moved his family to Singapore according to Sashidhar because he wanted to route some of his assets outside the US back to himself without attracting tax authorities.
He also changed his visa status to avoid paying exit tax on unrealized capital gains from Rippling.
Sashidhar lost her job after moving to Singapore and was unable to work while on a dependent visa through Sankar.
As per the report, Sankar would often tell his wife that she was entitled to none of his money.
Sashidhar claimed that Sankar began hanging out with 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.
On March 23 Sankar took to social media to share his story and accused his wife of kidnapping their only child and engaging in an extramarital affair. In his X thread he shared her email address and WhatsApp number leading to a flood of dead threats against her.
Sankar accused his wife of kidnapping their son and filing for divorce in the US and not in India in order to receive a larger settlement. He filed an international child abduction case against his wife when she took their son to the US, the US court ruled in his favour, leading to the signing of an understanding between the two parties.
As per 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.
Sashidhar said that Sankar has taken their son to an undetermined location and has not returned. According to the report Sankar said, he will return their son to Sashidhar so long as the child’s passport is placed in a shared locker, an arrangement he alleges they both agreed to.