Mumbai: Arjun Kapoor, who broke up with girlfriend Malaika Arora, impressed movie buffs and critics with his negative character in Rohit Shetty’s ‘Singham Again.’
In a recent interview with Raj Shamani on his podcast, Arjun talked about his traumatic childhood and how he dealt with dad Boney Kapoor’s affair with Sridevi and separation from his mother Mona Kapoor.
Recollecting the ‘traumatic’ phase in his life, Arjun shared, “My parents split up when I was 10 years old. That’s something that, at that point, didn’t feel that would shape me and change the course of my entirely because I was dealing with it in real-time. But when I look back, there are a lot of things that…”
He continued, “For example, my father was busy making two big films when that was happening. He was making Prem and Roop Ki Rani Choro Ka Raja. He was under a lot of pressure to complete those films and release them. So, we never had a normal father-son relationship where he came to school to pick me up or drop me off. It’s not that he didn’t try, but I never had that, and then the slip happened also. That is slightly traumatic when you look back and retrospect.”
Talking about his relationship with father Boney, Arjun said: “I was a naughty kid but I was very good with studies also, till I was in the fourth standard, I was very into it. And then the split happened. Now, when I look back, I couldn’t behave upset and spoilt and throw a s**t fit about it, the fact that I wanted this to not happen, but I think somewhere I lost interest in being good at education because I felt it was a rebellious feat. I chose to look away from that because I felt I didn’t need to do this. People were making their own choices I also wanted to do this. I used to enjoy school and then I started hating it because a lot of people wanted to know what was happening at that point. Thankfully, social media was not there. So it was still a bit of normal murmuring. But I had very good friends and family, I never had to face those issues, it wasn’t like I was isolated.”
Filmmaker Boney fell head over heels in love with Sridevi while still being married to Mona. Boney divorced Mona in 1996 and married Sridevi the same year.
How did he deal with all this?
“Initially maybe I must have tried to gain attention. But as I said, I had become very responsible. I became too aware. I matured ahead of my time because I wanted to make sure that I didn’t lose connection with my father. So I tried to process and analyse it… As long as he was happy with what he had done, I was okay with it. Even if I wasn’t ok with it, I rationalised it in my head at a young age. Thik hai, jo ho gaya woh ho gaya (what has happened has happened),” said Arjun.
On the work front, Arjun’s stars are shining with ‘Singham Again. following back-to-back flops like ‘The Lady Killer’, ‘Ek Villain Returns’ and ‘Kuttey’.
