Arjun Kapoor opens up about parents’ ‘traumatic’ separation

Arjun Kapoor talked candidly about the tough times he faced in his life, including the trauma of his parents’ split and the loss of his mother, Mona Shourie. In a recent conversation, Arjun reflected on how these experiences have shaped him and how he has coped with the emotional aftermath.

Recalling the time when his parents, Boney Kapoor and Mona Shourie, split up, Arjun, told Raj Shamani on his podcast, “Unlocking your core memory is tough when you have been through trauma. If you look at my life and scan through it, there has been enough trauma in terms of I lost my mother when I was 25, just before the release of ‘Ishaqzaade’, so that’s a pretty traumatic time just on the cusp of starting a profession where I didn’t know what my future was, I lost my backbone.”

“My parents split up when I was 10 years old. That’s something that, at that point, didn’t feel would shape me and change the course of my entirely because I was dealing with it in real time. But when I look back, there are a lot of things. For example, my father was busy making two big films when that happened. He was making ‘Prem’ and ‘Roop Ki Rani Choro Ka Raja’. He was under a lot of pressure to complete those films and release them. So, we never had a normal father-son relationship where he came to school to pick me up or drop me off. It’s not that he didn’t try, but I never had that, and then the slip happened also. That is slightly traumatic when you look back and retrospect,” he added.

Arjun also revealed that his situation forced him to mature early on in life: “Now, I have an equation with him when I spend a lot more time with him, but I’m 39. Over the last five years, I have spent more time with him. Again, in traumatic situations, the bridging of our relationship happened.”

“I had an interesting childhood. I grew up very fast. I also realised that I have to be responsible and well-behaved because I also knew what was going on. It was also a high-profile situation at that point because my father is a well-known person as it is. Our family is well known. But at the same time, it’s not like I went through hell because of it. It was balanced. Dad and his family were there.”