Kiran Rao wears many hats. She is a producer, screenwriter, director, and a proud mother. Kiran married superstar Aamir Khan in 2005, but the duo parted ways in 2021. Kiran and Aamir continue to co-parent their son Azad. In a recent interview with Zoom, the director opened up about having multiple miscarriages before conceiving Azad. Kiran said, “For five years, I had had a lot of miscarriages, a lot of personal, physical health issues. I was just finding it very hard to have a child. I was really keen to have a child, so when Azad was born it was… I didn’t have to make a decision. Obviously, all I wanted to do was raise my baby.”
Talking about her son, Kiran Rao added, “I enjoyed having Azad so much. Those were some of the best years of my life. I’ll never regret not having made a film in 10 years. I have no regrets because I enjoyed it thoroughly.”
When asked if Azad has an interest in the film industry, Kiran Rao replied, “No, not at this point. He doesn’t want anything to do with films. He is not interested in films.” She also shared that Azad is very interested in “art and music and animation.”
Before Kiran Rao, Aamir Khan was married to Reena Dutta. In another interview with Zoom, Kiran clarified that she began dating Aamir only after his divorce. She said, “Lots of people think that Aamir and I connected on Lagaan, we absolutely did not. He had his own life going on. In fact (he) went through his divorce after that. Aamir and I actually got together during Swades because he was going to be shooting Mangal Pandey and they were recceing in and around where we were shooting Swades. We had just shot a couple of commercials together with Ashu for Coke. Coke Punjabi and all of those. And that is where Amir and I reconnected, because like for 3-4 years after Lagaan, I had not really been in touch with him.”
“In fact, on Lagaan, I barely had any interaction with him (Aamir Khan) because he had his own make-up artist. I was dealing with most of the other actors. Of course, I was dealing with him as well, but Nicole used to do only his make-up. I had like 50 actors to put through all the other makeup departments. So on Lagaan, we had a friendly relationship and I kind of hung out with him. But I had my own gang. I was seeing somebody else on Lagaan. That’s another story. But when we did start hanging out in 2004, everybody assumed that it had started and that this had caused the divorce, which was not the fact,” Kiran Rao added.
On the work front, Kiran Rao last directed Laapataa Ladies. Aamir Khan was one of the producers of the film.