Farhan Akhtar shares how his childhood with divorced parents played a 'huge role' in his own divorce: 'I cannot...'

Javed Akhtar and Honey Irani tied the knot with each other in 1972. Their daughter Zoya Akhtar was born in the same year and son Farhan Akhtar was born in 1974. In 1978, Javed and Honey separated and got divorced in 1985. Javed married Shabana Azmi in 1984, while Honey took care of their two children.

Farhan Akhtar saw his parents getting divorced and after becoming a parent to two children, his own marriage fell apart. He tied the knot with Adhuna Bhabhani in 2000. Their first daughter Shakya Akhtar was born in the same year and their second daughter Akira Akhtar was born in 2007. Farhan and Adhuna announced their separation in 2016, and their divorce was finalised in 2017 with the latter receiving the custody of their children. Farhan married Shibani Dandekar in 2022 and continues to co-parent his daughters with Adhuna.

In a recent conversation with the journalist Faye D'Souza, the filmmaker and actor was asked, "When you ended one marriage, was it difficult given the childhood that you had?", Farhan shared that how his own childhood with divorced parents played a 'huge role' in deciding to end his first marriage with Adhuna.

The Dil Chahta Hai director said, "It was difficult. A certain aspect of it was of course that I had been through having divorced parents when I was a kid. I know what it felt like and there was a huge part of me that was like I cannot do this to my own kids. I felt that it came to a place that if Adhuna and myself spoke to them openly and honestly, and explain to them why we are taking this kind of step, that it doesnt have anything to do with them. It's not because of them, it's not because of anything they did, they said, or because they are here."

"This is something between two grown up people, who as friends decided that this is something that they want to do. That's the best we could do, but it's something that I am going to have to live with for the rest of my life. It's never going to entire go away thinking about 'Did they deserve this?'. It's going to keep coming up. That's something I guess I'll just have to live with. The fact that it had happened to me as a kid played a huge role in how I feel about it now", the Bhaag Milkha Bhaag actor added.

On the work front, Farhan Akhtar is working on his directorial comeback with Don 3. His last directed film was Don 2 in 2011. In the threequel, Ranveer Singh replaces Shah Rukh Khan, who had replaced Amitabh Bachchan in the 2006 film Don, the reboot to the 1978 classic Don. Don 3 is slated to release in 2025.

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