Priyadarshan and Lissy start living together again 10 years after divorce; no plans to remarry: ‘Except for a marriage certificate…’

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‘Priyadarshan, Lissy won’t remarry’

Now, Priyadarshan himself has confirmed that they are indeed back together, but without being bound by the institution of marriage. “Except for a marriage certificate, we are living the same life together,” he told Mid-Day. In fact, a source close to the family told the publication that Mammootty met the couple to share his elation at their reunion. The megastar was recently at Lissy’s studio, Le Magic Lantern, in Chennai for the voice recording for director Mahesh Narayanan’s Patriot, which marks the on-screen reunion of Mammootty and Mohanlal after 17 years.

Mentioning that their children, actor Kalyani Priyadarshan and Siddharth, played a key role in their rekindling, the source maintained that the couple would, however, not marry each other again. “This decision was taken six to eight months ago. The couple won’t remarry. To them, marriage is just a certificate; friendship, companionship, and love are more important,” they noted.

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When Lissy called their divorce as ugly as their marriage

Priyadarshan and Lissy tied the knot in 1990 when both were at the peak of their respective careers. Subsequently, she gave up acting. After 24 years of marriage, they filed for divorce in 2014, and it was finalised in 2016. In a statement to the media later, Lissy called their divorce as ugly as their marriage.

“In recent times, all celebrity divorces — from Hrithik Roshan and Sussane Khan, Dileep and Manju Warrier, to most recently Amala Paul and AL Vijay — have been mutually agreed divorces. I am sure it also must have been painful to those couples, but whatever differences they may have had, they all decided to respect each other. Ours was the only exception where it was often a fierce and uncivilised battle on and off the courts until a compromise was reached at the Honourable High Court, Chennai. Perhaps the ugliness of our divorce proceedings says all about the kind of marriage we have had,” Onmanorama quoted her as saying.

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Ego caused the divorce, Priyadarshan revealed

Meanwhile, Priyadarshan later cited “ego” as the reason behind their split. “The only reason for the problem in my family was ego. I was born and brought up in a conservative family, and in my mind, the model of a woman is my mother. When we marry, we should not expect our partner to have the same nature as that of our mother because it is not possible, as she is from a different generation,” he told Grihalakshmi once.

The director added, “My parents also loved Lissy more than my sister. All these years I was living in heaven, and now we are separated. But my house (in Chennai) still bears the same name: Priyadarshan-Lissy. I know that, irrespective of whatever has happened, she still respects me. It was just a problem of ego.”