Imran Khan’s ex-wife Avantika Malik felt like she’d ‘die’ because of divorce, recalls daughter’s reaction: ‘Will I get a new mumma?’ | Bollywood News

Former actor Imran Khan has often spoken about his separation in recent interviews, and now, his ex-wife Avantika Malik has shared her side of the story. In an interview with Janice Sequiera, Avantika said that divorce ‘isn’t the worst thing in the world’, but admitted that she was ‘convinced’ that she wouldn’t survive a day without Imran. Avantika said that she didn’t even know how to book flight tickets on her own, and wasn’t financially independent when she and Imran divorced during the pandemic. Avantika said that, as a child of divorce herself, she was probably projecting her ‘daddy issues’ onto her relationship.
She said, “It’s just two people growing apart, it’s not the worst thing in the world. I would feel that if my marriage broke, I would die. I felt that I would not survive one day without this guy. I was convinced that I will die. The day we decided that this is it, I wept like there had been a death in the immediate family. I was petrified, because I was also not earning at that time. I’m aware that I come from a lot of privilege and that I will not be on the road.”
Also read – Imran Khan says decision to divorce Avantika Malik was his, endorses ‘changing the contract’ if a marriage isn’t working
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Asked what the separation was like, she said, “It wasn’t that structured. We kind of decided to separate for a while before deciding to divorce. There was a fair bit of time… It was also during COVID that all of this happened. The divorce itself took time. My parents are divorced, to begin with, so it wasn’t too difficult to address, or something that made me very uncomfortable. I’ve seen my mom wear it with pride her entire life. It’s not embarrassing to me.”
Avantika said that because she and Imran were in a long-term relationship, she wasn’t fully evolved when they started dating. Imran’s celebrity status also affected the dynamics of their relationship. “As somebody who has ‘daddy issues’, of course it’s going to colour the way I look at men. We met when we were 19, and when you’re with someone for a long time, a co-dependency happens. I couldn’t book an airline ticket on my own! I was married to someone whose life was bigger, he was a public figure,” she said, adding that divorce is more difficult for men.
She admitted that she felt a lot of guilt for having let her family down. “This golden couple and their fall from grace. These two were so in love, and always together, and always happy, they threw in the towel. I felt that I had disappointed everybody in my life. It was very, very, very hard. And it took me a very long time to not carry that responsibility and disappointment,” she said.
Imran and Avantika, who were together for nearly 20 years, have a daughter named Imaara. Asked how she handled the situation, Avantika said, “Initially, she had a lot of questions. She was like, ‘Does that mean I’m going to get a new mumma?’ I was like, ‘No, darling, you’re stuck with this one’… What Imran and I did well was that we were very consent about her spending time with the both of us. We have joint custody. She spends half her week with me, half her week with him.”