Shahid Kapoor was bullied as a child because his father did not live with him: ‘Parents are like legs, when one is missing…’

He also recalled memories from his childhood and said that while his father was not a daily presence, his maternal grandfather was “unconditionally” there for him. “If I look back now, he is the deepest influence in my life, but I am sure he was filling in the shoes of my dad not being there everyday. He was unconditionally there for me. My strongest memory as a child is with with my Nanaji,” he said.

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Shahid shared that kids around him would make him feel bad about the fact that his father didn’t live with him. “Kids are very mean. So, at that time, when you don’t have a parent, they make you feel bad about it, that this is not normal. And other kids made me feel that. Those kids don’t know what they are doing, they are just being stupid but you end up feeling like my life is over.”

Shahid said that when one becomes a parent, they start oscillating between a child and a parent as they are then playing both roles, and also begin to question their parents’ actions. “Sometimes you might feel that I can’t be as good as my father or mother, or sometimes you might feel like I am doing a lot, why didn’t my parents do as much? You can feel both ways and both are just as valid.”

Shahid said that since he has a son and a daughter now, he can see how his kids gets affected even when he is gone for a couple of days. “Very clearly, it gives me perspective to compare to maybe how I might have felt as a child so those things become apparent,” he said. He further spoke about his children and said that his son feels “more secure” when Shahid is around. “When I am not around, I feel he doesn’t feel as secure, even for my daughter, but I would say more for my son. Because I think that male energy connect between father and son, I don’t know it works but probably as father and child, we feed off each other,” he said.

Shahid is married to Mira Rajput and has a daughter named Misha (8), and a son named Zain (6). Shahid and his father mended their relationship after Shahid became an actor; they have also worked together on several films.