Zayed Khan opens up about his father Sanjay Khan and Zeenat Aman’s alleged affair: ‘Industry was Wild Wild West at that time’

Zeenat Aman and Sanjay Khan starred together in films like Dhund, Abdullah. (Photo: Express Archives)

Zeenat Aman, known for her adeptness on social media and for sharing her thoughts on Instagram, addressed an incident that caused her difficulty in vision last year. She opened up about an injury she suffered 40 years ago that damaged the muscles around her right eye. Zeenat shared that this injury caused her eyelid to droop and obstructed her vision. She said that 40 years later, medical advancements have made it possible for her to regain her vision. Zeenat has previously discussed her experiences with physical abuse and violence and stated that to move forward in life, she has chosen to block out the memories of that time.

However, Sanjay Khan, who allegedly hit Zeenat in a public gathering, told Hrishikesh Kannan on his podcast that he “never slapped her,” calling Zeenat’s accusations a “PR attack against him which came like a blitzkrieg.” Addressing the accusations of injuring her eye, he claimed that in Zeenat’s case, it was “hereditary” and that the “facts were totally, radically opposite.” He added, “If you see ’81, ’82, ’83, ’84, she did several films. There is evidence that she had perfect eyes. Later in life, she became a little squint because her mother was a bit squint. It was a hereditary thing that was labelled on me. I never slapped her, and this was blasphemy.”

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During a 1999 appearance on Simi Garewal’s show, Rendezvous with Simi Garewal, Zeenat Aman spoke about the physical abuse. “For many years, in my mind, it’s been obliterated because I think that’s what the human mind does. When there is something distinctly unpleasant, you just close your mind to it and pretend that it never happened and you promise yourself that it will never happen again. And that’s how you cope,” she said.

Sanjay Khan with wife Zarine Khan. (Photo: Simi/YouTube)

On the same show, Sanjay Khan’s wife Zarine Khan opened up about her husband’s extramarital affair without naming Zeenat. “There was a time when my marriage seemed to be under threat to a lot of people, but not to me.” Sanjay, who admitted to being unfaithful to his wife when she was pregnant with their son Zayed, added, “It was never under threat; I loved my wife and children deeply, and if it was taken for granted by someone, then that was another story, because there was no such thing from my side.” Sanjay and Zarine have been married since 1966, having tied the knot when Zarine was only 20 and Sanjay Khan was 25. They have four children — Farah Khan Ali, Simone Arora, Sussanne Khan, and Zayed Khan.

Zarine emphasised that despite his infidelity and the actor “faltering a bit,” she had faith in him. “Being an actor’s wife, you have to have that much patience, strength, and conviction to know that he is going to come back to you. The children were too young to know what was going on. I assure you, I was not the first woman to have fallen for him; there were lots of women, but he was always mine,” she asserted.

When releasing his autobiography The Best Mistakes of My Life in 2018, Sanjay Khan did not address the incident in his book. Instead, he wrote about an alternate timeline and referred to himself and Zeenat as ‘prince’ and ‘princess,’ the names of their characters in Abdullah.