Bollywood actor Govinda and his wife Sunita’s relationship is reportedly going through a challenging time. If reports are to be believed, the couple is heading for divorce, ending their 37-year-long marriage.

Advertisment

Having been together for nearly four decades, the couple has faced their fair share of struggles. As news of their troubled marriage surfaces, let's turn back the pages of history and revisit the time when Govinda revealed how he broke off his engagement with Sunita for actress Neelam Kothari.

Govinda ruled the 1980s and 90s with his impeccable comic timing and smooth dance moves. While his career flourished, his personal life was far from smooth.

When Govinda broke his engagement with Sunita because of Neelam

Advertisment

Govinda and Sunita were in a relationship before he made his debut in Love 86. Soon after the film's release, the actor secretly married Sunita in 1987, keeping their union hidden from the public.

Soon after he made his debut, he developed feelings for Neelam. In a 1990 interview with Stardust, Govinda confessed that the more he got to know Neelam, the more he liked her.

“She was the kind of woman any man would have lost his heart to. I lost mine,” Govinda shared. The fondness he had for his then co-star was quite evident, as he couldn't stop talking about her. 

“I couldn’t stop praising her [Neelam]. To my friends, to my family. Even to Sunita, to whom I was committed. I would tell Sunita to change herself and become like Neelam. I would tell her to learn from her. I was merciless. Sunita would get irritated. She would tell me, ‘You fell in love with me because of what I am, don’t ever try to change me.’ But I was so confused. I didn’t know what to own,” he said in the interview. 

However, his admiration for Neelam soon became a problem in his personal life with Sunita. And things went bad to the extent that the actor even asked Sunita to leave him. 

''After I started getting busier, my relationship with Sunita went through a change. She began feeling insecure and jealous. And I was of no help. She would nag me and I would lose my temper. We had constant fights. In one of those fights, Sunita said something about Neelam, and I lost my head and called it quits. I asked Sunita to leave me. I broke off my engagement with her. And had Sunita not called me after five days and coaxed me into it again, I would probably have married Neelam."

In the same interview, Govida confessed that his relationship with Sunita was a 'strategic move' and he started seeing her only to get romantically involved with someone in a way to remove the awkwardness he had with women while doing intimate scenes in movies.

“At that point in time, I met Sunita. I admit that my involvement with her was a totally calculated move on my part. And I paid a heavy price for it,” he said.