‘Ranbir, Riddhima were scared of him’: Neetu says fights with Rishi Kapoor went on for 6 months

Neetu Kapoor would freeze out Rishi Kapoor for 6 months

“I used to only fight with my husband. My husband and I used to fight for months,” she said. Neetu described Rishi as “strong-minded” and said that whenever they were in a fight, she couldn’t put across her thoughts as he wouldn’t listen to her, so she would take a stand, and freeze him out for months, until he made up with her. “I used to go on this cold war and the cold war could go on for a month, six months. I would not bend till the time he didn’t ask me, ‘What’s your problem?’ And he would do that,” she said and recalled with a smile that Rishi would start calling up their children – son Ranbir and daughter Riddhima – to check how Neetu was doing so he could gauge what was happening with her.

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“And then he would say ‘Acha bata yaar, kya hai? What’s your problem? Let’s sort it out.’ I would say, now that you have come to me, now, you listen to me. Because otherwise, he would just not listen,” she said and added that her mother-in-law would joke about the cold wars between them. “So when I would tell people that I have been married for 30 or 40 years, my mother-in-law would say, ‘You are only married for 20 years because you haven’t spoken for 10 years’,” she shared.

Neetu Kapoor was ‘intimidated’ by Rishi Kapoor

Neetu recalled that once they started speaking again, she would ask Rishi to lose weight, follow a diet, start exercising, and he would follow her terms religiously, but only for a while. “He would do everything because he wanted to be the good boy because he just made up after 6 months. But then again, he would fall back to his old ways,” she said and added that the entire Kapoor clan, at least the older generation, did not believe in diet and exercise.

Neetu also spoke at length about their association and said that since she met him at a young age, and felt like he had shown her the world, she would often get intimidated by him. “I got involved with him when I was 14-15, so I kind of grew up with him. He took me out, he showed me the world. He would take me to discotheques. He taught me how to have wine and all. I had not seen the world. Maybe, I was very intimidated by him and I would always try to make him happy,” she said.

Rishi Kapoor with Ranbir Kapoor and Neetu Kapoor. (Photo: Express Archives)

Neetu Kapoor would fast for Rishi Kapoor when his films didn’t work

Neetu said that whenever Rishi had a film that did not work, she would fast for him and visit religious places, just so his film works, because she didn’t want to see him unhappy. “When his films didn’t work, I would do all these fasts, go to temples, gurudwaras and churches. I don’t how many novenas I must have done in my life so his film works. I couldn’t see him upset, unhappy. That was my life and it was a very innocent life. Today, when I look back, I see that I was really innocent. I just went through life the way it came,” she said.

Neetu then elaborated about the changing times and how the institution of marriage is facing a decline. She said that there are primarily two reasons for that – kids and economic independence. “You don’t need to be married to have kids,” she said and added, “So, the institution of marriage is going down.” She added that since everyone is also “financially secure and independent”, that also changes things in a relationship.

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Rishi Kapoor’s kids were ‘scared’ of him

Rishi and Neetu’s daughter Riddhima got married when she was 25, and did not start working until much later in life. Talking about the same, she said that she always encouraged Riddhima to work and dismissed the thought that Rishi barred her from doing movies, as is popularly believed. “I always encouraged Riddhima but she chose her life. It wasn’t like my husband told her, ‘Don’t work in movies.’ That’s what she chose. Today, she wants to work, she is working. She wanted to devote her time to her husband, her daughter, that was her priority,” she said.

During the conversation, she also opened up about Rishi’s relationship with his children and said that he chose to have the kind of relationship where he wasn’t friendly with them. “My husband wanted to keep that, ‘I am the father, don’t get too close to me, keep that distance’. So he never got friendly with Ranbir or Ridhhima because they should have some fear,” she said and recalled that the moment he entered the house, the kids would run towards their rooms. “They were scared. There was that kind of a fear. He wanted that,” he said.

Rishi Kapoor with his family.

Rishi Kapoor acknowledged maintaining distance from kids

In the past, Ranbir has spoken about his relationship with his father. In Rishi’s memoir, where Ranbir wrote the foreword, he shared, “I am closer to my mother. I feel that Dad modelled his relationship with me on the one he shared with his own father. And it is true that I have never crossed a certain line with him. But there is no sense of loss or vacuum here. I do wish sometimes that I could be friendlier with him or even spend more time with him.”

Rishi echoed the same sentiment as he shared in the same book, “The distance that exists between us is similar to the one between my father and me. Ranbir and I see each other through this space but can’t feel each other. At least, I can’t. There are times when I feel I’ve missed out on being a friend to my son.” He said that he was “strict father” because he was brought up to believe that is how is should be.

Rishi was the son of late filmmaker-actor Raj Kapoor, and shared a similar relationship with his father.