Arbaaz Khan and Malaika Arora announcing their separation in 2016 sent shockwaves through the industry. Soon, all kinds of theories started doing the rounds, from his family disapproving of her lifestyle to an extramarital affair, forcing them to issue a statement and refute the “wrong, malicious information”. Their divorce came through in May 2017.
While Arbaaz and Malaika have not divulged too many details of their divorce, she was surprisingly candid when she came on Kareena Kapoor Khan’s radio show What Women Want. She revealed that her family requested her to reconsider and think things through even the night before her divorce came through.
“I think sab ki pehli yehi raai hai ki mat karna. Koi aapko nahi kahega ki, ‘Haan, haan, please jayiye, kariye.’ That’s the first thing, ki aap soch samajh ke yeh decision lena (I think everyone’s first response is ‘Don’t do it.’ No one will tell you, ‘Yes, please go ahead and do it.’ That’s the first thing everyone says, to think things through before coming to a decision). I went through the same thing,” Malaika said.
“Even the night before I got divorced, I had my family sit with me and ask me yet again, ‘Are you sure? Are you 100 per cent about your decision?’ That was something I heard all along and rightly so. These are the people who worry and care so they will definitely say that,” she added.
Malaika said that she got the “extra strength” that she needed from her friends and family, once they understood that she was firm in her decision to end her marriage with Arbaaz, and supported her.
Talking about taking the decision to split, Malaika said, “It’s never, ever easy, like no other major decision in your life. At the end of the day, someone has to be blamed. You always have to point fingers at someone. I think that’s the general human nature to go about things,” she said.
However, for Malaika, happiness was extremely important, not just her own but also that of others around her. She shared that she and Arbaaz “weighed every single pro and con” before arriving at the decision to end their marriage.
“We decided, it’s better off that we move our separate ways because we would just be better people. Because we were two people in a situation making each other extremely unhappy which was impacting everybody else’s life around us,” she said.
Arbaaz and Malaika have a 17-year-old son, Arhaan. “I would much rather see my child in a happy environment than be subjected to an environment that is completely disruptive. With time, my child is far more accepting. He can see that we both as individuals are far more happy than we were in our marriage,” she said on the show, adding, “He did actually turn around one day and he did say that to me, ‘Mom, it’s good to see you happy and smiling.’”
