Twinkle Khanna refused to work with ‘flop’ Akshay Kumar till dad Rajesh Khanna insisted: ‘He was going through a bad phase’

Akshay Kumar reveals the amount of background research his wife Twinkle Khanna did about his family's health and DNA history before deciding to marry him.

By: Entertainment Desk

New Delhi | October 8, 2025 01:43 PM IST

4 min read

Akshay Kumar recalls the story of his wedding to Twinkle Khanna. (Photo: Express Archive)

Bollywood stars Akshay Kumar and Twinkle Khanna have been married 24 years, tying the knot in January 2001. Over the years, the couple have given their fans many anecdotes about meeting for the first time, their wedding and how their relationship has evolved over the years. Currently Twinkle is co-hosting the talk show Two Much, along with Kajol, and Akshay and Saif Ali Khan showed up for the latest episode. As if waiting for the opportunity, Akshay talked about Twinkle and their union some more and the work that went into its inception.

Twinkle accepted that she worked in a film with Akshay only at father Rajjesh Khanna’s behest. “We actually met because of my dad. My dad had an old producer friend.’ He said, ‘You have to work in this movie because I have given my word.’ I didn’t want to work with him at that point, but I did.” She accepted that Akshay’s back-to-back flops were the reason, ‘He was going through a bad phase, and I was being snobby.” Saif Ali Khan came out in Akshay’s support and said, “You’ve always given some flops and then super hits, so who cares?”

Akshay also recalled how Twinkle was extremely cautious before getting married to him, and he told Kajol and Saif about how she researched his family thoroughly to check whether there were any genetic disorders or diseases present. He said, “Aadmi jab shaadi karta hai toh do kundliyaan milata hai. (When people get married, they usually match their birth chart.) She didn’t believe in that. You know what she did? She checked if my father had any kind of disease—she’s removed all the genetic and DNA background till my mamas, chachas and chachis. And then, and only then, she decided that, okay, I can marry him.”

Akshay called them opposites on the show. “She is fire. I am water. She says whatever she wants to. I just keep myself calm and quiet. Just listen and try to understand what she’s trying to say. Do whatever you want, but listen. I think every husband should be a good listener.”

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Twinkle has talked about her due diligence before marrying Akshay in the past as well. During a 2016 appearance on Koffee with Karan, the actor said, “The reason you get married is primarily to have children. So, you are introducing this genetic strain into your family line. I wanted to know what diseases run in his family. At what age did his uncles lose their hair? What did Kanchan Chachi die of?” She added that his family ultimately passed her “litmus test”.

Interestingly, Akshay’s marriage was not only dependent on his family having healthy genes. There was another stipulation involved, which the actor revealed during a recent appearance on Aap Ki Adalat. He said, “When her film with Aamir Khan Sahab, Mela, was about to release, we were having an affair. So I asked her, ‘Let’s get married?’ But she didn’t want to marry. So, she said she’d marry only if Mela doesn’t work. Everyone believed that Mela would work wonders because it’s an Aamir Khan film, with Dharmesh Darshan as the director. Sorry, Aamir Khan sahab, that film of yours didn’t work. But I got married because of you.”

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