Malaika Arora has finally opened up on her divorce with Arbaaz Khan and how difficult the decision was for her till the last moment.
Speaking with Kareena Kapoor Khan on her radio show, Malaika said she weighed all her options because she took the decision.
Speaking on Kareena’s show What Women Want, Malaika said the inclination to blame someone is always there. “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, she decided to go through with the divorce as she and Arbaaz were in an unhappy marriage. “We did think about a lot of things and weighed every single pro and con. And then we decided, it’s better off that we move our separate ways because we’d 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.
Malaika and Arbaaz divorced in 2017 after almost 19 years of marriage; they have a 16-year-old son, Arhaan.
Talking about how her family asked her till the last minute if she really wanted a divorce, Malaika said, “Nobody really encourages you to go right ahead. Even the night before the divorce, I had my family sit with me and ask me, are you sure? I heard this all along and perhaps rightly so because these are people who worry and care for you.”
She said there were many who termed her brave for her decision. “If you are in an unhappy marriage and that’s what you decide to do you should do it with a lot of dignity, self-respect. Don’t let anybody tell you that you are any less of a woman. With me, I could sense that a lot of people were like, how the hell did you pull it off?”
She accepted that it was comparatively more difficult for women to move on with their lives after divorce. “It’s the biggest disparity there is among all the other disparities there are which women have to face.”
However, she advised women to date after a divorce. “It’s not impossible. Swipe left, right, whatever it might be! Have fun! For the first time in your life, you will also discover a kind of freedom. To be in a bed all alone is also a new feeling!”
