Sonali Bendre admits she wasn’t ‘fond’ of Salman Khan, says his caring side emerged during her cancer battle: ‘He made two trips to New York…’

In a recent interview, Sonali Bendre opened up about her Hum Saath Saath Hain co-star Salman Khan's caring side, which emerged after her cancer diagnosis.

By: Entertainment Desk

New Delhi | June 8, 2025 01:35 PM IST

3 min read

Sonali Bendre on Salman Khan's trips to New York during her cancer treatment.

Actress Sonali Bendre was diagnosed with stage four metastatic cancer in 2018. She has been candid about her recovery journey, including undergoing treatment in New York and Mumbai. Recently, Sonali revealed that her Hum Saath Saath Hain co-star Salman Khan was a major source of support after the diagnosis — from visiting her in New York to regularly checking in through her husband. She also recalled that during their shoot for the 1999 Sooraj Barjatya film, she wasn’t particularly fond of Salman.

In an interview with ANI, Sonali recalled their early days and said, “There are two sides to Salman. You can either love him or you will hate him. And at that point of time, I was not fond of him. When I was doing Hum Saath Saath Hain, I have had my close-ups that we are doing when he’s standing behind the camera and making faces at me. But that was Salman. He’s a prankster. He’s like a child.”

But, Salman Khan’s caring side emerged years later. “The same person who’s making faces behind the camera is the same person who has made two trips maybe to New York where I’m there to see if I’m okay in my illness. He would call up and check with my husband, and say, ‘Are you sure you’ve got the right doctors? I think you should get in touch with these doctors also,'” Sonali added.

ALSO READ | ‘Neelam got irritated with me after I fell on her, Salman Khan started ragging her’, Mahesh Thakur recalls Hum Saath-Saath Hain shoot

Sonali Bendre also spoke about living in ‘denial’ after her cancer diagnosis. “I was in denial. I would actually get up in the night and feel like it’s a dream. But then you wake up and realise it’s not a dream, nothing has changed, it’s the reality,” she shared.

The actress continued, “The thing about cancer is the treatment is so harsh, especially when you go through your regular chemotherapy and radiation and all of that. Those are so harsh. Your body is just killed from inside. And just to heal from it and get back to doing the work that I do. Our job is very physical. Not just mental, but very, very physical also. So there is no, ‘I’m not up to it,’ but the set is standing. The dates are there. You have to go to work. You can’t say somebody else take over for me today. So I needed to really heal and then get back to it, which I have done now.”

On the work front, Sonali Bendre was last seen in the second season of the ZEE5 series The Broken News.

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