Mahira Khan recalls ‘painful’ divorce from husband Ali and taking refuge in work; ‘It was a tough time’

Mahira Khan is an actress whom we remember from her debut Indian action film Raees headlined by Shah Rukh Khan. The movie that was released in 2017 made her the first Pakistani actress to join Bollywood’s 100 Crore Club.

The Pakistani actress has always put her guard up when it came to her family and kept her personal life under wraps until she opened up her heart in a podcast recently.

Mahira Khan talks about her marriage with her childhood sweetheart Ali Askari

Khan, who is Pakistan’s most popular and highest-paid actress, flew across the ocean to Los Angeles when she was as young as 17 just because she fell in love with Ali Askari.

In the FWhy Podcast, the actor-singer revealed, “We were always supposed to go to LA since my uncles were already there. But at 17, I insisted that I go early since I was in love and he was there. But, after going there, mujhe meri naani yaad aa gayi (things got difficult for me).”

Mahira further recalled that after she flew to LA to Ali in 2006, the couple broke up. However, their love bloomed again and the couple decided to patch things up.

While she was in LA, the actress enrolled in a college to complete her studies but she left her studies mid-way to get married to her now estranged husband in 2007 in a traditional wedding ceremony and returned to Pakistan.

Mahira opened up about her ‘painful’ divorce

In 2009, the couple was blessed with a baby boy, they named Azlaan. However, in 2015 the couple called it quits and got divorced. Talking about the traumatic time, the actress said, “Post Azu, I knew my marriage was…even prior, I think. But I think you let it go on and you love the person, who is your childhood sweetheart. But I think that was a very painful and difficult time. I was so young at the time. I had a baby, I was scared.”

She added that it was her work that she took refuge in

Mahira shared, “Professionally, I was very successful. I never knew I would become successful overnight with Humsafar. But personally, it was a tough time.”

Mahira went down memory lane and relived the pain that came with her divorce. “When you are going through it, it is very painful. You are sitting in a room, and you feel the walls are closing in on you. You feel anxious and you don’t know what it is. I think that is more painful than when you make a decision.”

Talking about the initial days few years of her separation, she said, “The first few years were very painful because it was about two good people, it was not an abusive relationship. But it was like two kids had gotten married and sometimes two people evolve differently. There was a little bit of pressure to go back as well.”

But it was because of her child that she decided to stand up on her own feet. “I knew that I would take my child but I knew that I didn’t want to be dependent on anyone, not even my parents. When there was nobody with me, I had my work. It was a huge support,” concluded the actress.