Rajesh Khanna was in a ‘huge shock’ after he learnt he was adopted, says Anita Advani | Bollywood News

5 min readNew DelhiJul 25, 2026 04:58 PM For millions, Rajesh Khanna was Hindi cinema’s first superstar. Fans wrote him letters in blood, married his photographs and queued outside his bungalow just to catch a glimpse of him. But behind that larger-than-life image, says Anita Advani, was a man carrying emotional wounds long before fame found him. Speaking about the late actor, rumoured girlfriend Anita claimed that childhood, failed relationships and betrayals people he trusted gradually turned him into someone who struggled to believe anyone around him.
‘He lost faith in people’
Speaking on the Meri Saheli podcast, Anita said Khanna’s trust in people slowly eroded over the years.
“He was suspicious of everyone. If you ask me psychologically, I think he lost his trust in people. First, he was adopted. Then he was betrayed in relationships. Friends in the industry also betrayed him. Even those whom he had helped and made successful eventually went against him. He became suspicious of everyone.”
Anita, who has maintained that she shared a close relationship with Khanna for over a decade during the later years of his life, said the actor was repeatedly taken advantage of people around him.
“Many people exploited him. During political campaigns, he would go wherever he was asked, but people in between would pocket the money. Kakaji himself never took any money.”
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‘His childhood never left him’
According to Anita, many people wondered why Khanna appeared increasingly withdrawn and difficult in his later years, but few understood the experiences that shaped him.Story continues below this ad
“People ask why there were so many changes in his personality, why he became so difficult. His life itself began on a complicated note. He was adopted, and when he came to know about it, it was a huge shock for him.”
Born as Jatin Khanna in 1942, the actor was adopted his childless relatives, Chunnilal and Leelawati Khanna, who raised him as their own. Anita believes the revelation left a lasting impact on him.
“He wasn’t close to his biological sers or family. Once his ser came to meet him and he asked, ‘Who is she?’ There wasn’t much of an emotional connection.”
From unbelievable highs to painful lows
Rajesh Khanna‘s rise remains unmatched in Hindi cinema. After Aradhana (1969), he delivered an unprecedented streak of 15 consecutive hit films and became the country’s first bona fide superstar. Producers waited outside his home with signing amounts, while his fans turned their admiration into near-religious devotion.Story continues below this ad
But Hindi cinema changed rapidly in the mid-1970s. As Amitabh Bachchan’s angry young man resonated with audiences, the era of the romantic superstar began to fade. The man who had once seemed invincible suddenly found himself confronting failure.
Years later, Khanna himself admitted he wasn’t prepared for that fall.
‘When I started dipping, I hit the bottle’
In a 1990 interview with Movie magazine, Rajesh Khanna spoke about how success transformed him and how failure nearly broke him.
“I still remember the exact moment when for the first time I became aware of how mind-blowing super-success can be. It psyches you totally — or you’re not human,” he said.Story continues below this ad
The actor admitted that as his films stopped working, he turned to alcohol to cope.
“Later, when I started dipping, I hit the bottle. I mean, I am not a superhuman being. You are not Jesus Chr and I am not Mahatma Gandhi.”
He recalled the night when seven of his films had failed one after another, a moment that left him questioning everything.
“It was three in the morning. I was pretty high on spirits… it was my first taste of failure. Seven films had flopped in a row. It was raining, pitch-dark, and I was alone on my terrace. I lost control and cried out, ‘Parvardigar, hum garibon ka itna sakht imtihaan na le ki hum tere wajood ko inkaar kar dein.’”Story continues below this ad
Anita Advani came into Rajesh Khanna’s life in the early 2000s and has often said they shared a close relationship for over a decade until the actor’s death in 2012. She has claimed they lived together and has even alleged that they were privately married, though those claims were never legally established and have been disputed members of Khanna’s family. Rajesh got married to Dimple Kapadia in 1973 and while the couple separated almost a decade later, they never got divorced.