And Thursday’s Delhi High Court ruling decriminalising homosexuality was as much a moral victory for her as it was personal—it was also a tribute to her first boyfriend, who was gay and died in tragic circumstances, destroyed by the stigma attached to his sexual preference.

The landmark judgment, says the No Entry star, has undoubtedly pleased her. But she also feels that the real battle of garnering social acceptability for the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) community will be a long one.

“The journey has just begun. We have to work on getting social acceptability, counseling and other rights. We’re working with the United Nations to come up with an NGO that will help fund the lower-middle class people of the LGBT community who are really marginalised and can’t even avail basic benefits,” says the 29-year-old actor.

But Jaitley’s own journey down what was a rough and complex path began when she was a teenager. It all started in Kolkata when a 16-year-old Jaitley met a good-looking man—whose name she wants to keep private—at a party and it was love at first sight. “He was a mature guy, about 13 years my senior and I fell totally in love with him,” she recalls.

They started spending time together and Jaitley became completely besotted by her boyfriend. “He was a perfect gentleman, very jovial and we really bonded well. Since I came from a protective Army family, I didn’t notice anything amiss in our relationship.”

However, her bubble burst when she noticed that he didn’t want to spend time alone with her. When she confronted him, he came out and told her that he was gay. “I was just a girlfriend to show to the world,” Jaitley says.

Too young to comprehend what this entailed, Jaitley’s health took a hit and she started suffering from the eating disorder, bulimia. “I was so madly in love with him that I used to pray to God to change him. I couldn’t understand why he couldn’t love me the way I loved him. My health started failing. I would stuff my face with food and then induce vomits to purge myself. Then I became anorexic,” she says.

Things came to a head when her boyfriend got violent with her. “After one-and-a-half years, the relationship had run its course. But I was unable to leave him. But when the relationship turned abusive I put an end to it,” Jaitley adds.

But the two reconnected after a few years when he apologised for getting violent, and they became friends. “By this time, he was openly gay. But he wasn’t in a happy space. He was in an abusive relationship, was a victim of gay bashing and was yearning for acceptance from his family members who were pressurising him to get married. Ultimately he destroyed himself because of all this stress and died so young,” she says.

His death after a heart attack left a deep impact on Jaitley and that’s when she decided to “voice my voice”, as she says. Her educationist grandmother who works with the United Nations also urged her to use her celebrity status to speak up for the cause of the LGBT community.

And then there was Probir Kumar Dey, her transgendered make-up artiste. Dey introduced the actor to the fashion world and urged her to fill out the Femina Miss India form, a move that changed her life. “Probirda was transgendered. He used to wear salwar kameez and fought taunts of ‘hijra’. He was almost like my fairy godmother and groomed me to become Miss India. I lost him five years back but if he were alive today, he would have really rejoiced at the legalisation of homosexuality in our country,” she says.

The actor, who was recently seen in Subhash Ghai’s Paying Guest, is hopeful that her Bollywood fraternity will also come out in full force to support the LGBT community. “After the landmark judgment, homosexuals won’t be vulnerable targets. I’m hoping that we get to see the passionate side of homosexual relationships on screen instead of caricatures,” she says.