Actor washed utensils at restaurant, was turned down as air-hostess for ‘not having a personality’; became TV’s highest paid, charges lakhs for one episode 

 

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Born in 1976 as Smriti Malhotra in Delhi, Smriti was brought up by a half-Punjabi and half-Maharashtrian father and Bengali mother. She was the eldest of three sisters. Smriti had to drop out of college and began her professional journey working as a cleaner at India’s first McDonald’s at a meager salary of Rs 1800 a month. Before that, she also participated in the Miss India Pageant and made it to top 10 finalists. For this, she had to borrow Rs 1 lakh from her family. After the pageant, she tried to work as an air hostess with Jet Airways but was rejected in the interview for ‘not having the personality’.

Smriti continued to audition for shows and films, including for Sweety’s role in Hum Paanch. It was during one of her auditions that Ekta Kapoor’s mother spotted Smriti Irani and asked Ekta to cast her. Sharing this story with Smriti during an Instagram live, Smriti Irani had said, “I don’t know what you did back then, but my mum was completely taken by you. She’s actually a big fan of Twinkle Khanna, and she called me saying, ‘There’s this girl who looks like Twinkle Khanna and she’s so beautiful—please cast her.’ So everyone thinks I cast you for Kyunki, but it was actually my mum who saw you and said, ‘I really like this girl’… and what a face. Then Smriti came for the auditions—she was very slim, quiet, and shy. She gave her audition and ended it with such a sweet smile.” Interestingly, only Ekta liked Smriti’s audition, and she went with her gut feeling, casting Smriti for the role.

The show began in 2000 and started leading TRP charts within three months of its release, making Smriti a household name. While working on the show, Smriti also got married. Recalling that time, the actress shared that she had no money at that time, and she was looking to get a home loan. Revisiting her journey, Smriti Irani had once said in an interview, “I didn’t enter the modelling world; I didn’t have the wherewithal to be very successfully fashionable. I had entered the Miss Indian contestant because there was also an opportunity to speak. It was not just about looking good, but also about presenting an individual. I had that in my head that if they ask me a question, I will answer it so well that I will win that crown, but I was mistaken. You needed to be there.”

Also Read: Smriti Irani confirms she’s TV’s highest paid actor with Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi 2 amid claims she’s earning Rs 14 lakh per episode, surpasses Anupamaa’s Rupali Ganguly

It wasn’t like Smriti had it easy; she had to face rejections, too. “Some people judged me for the way I looked, some said I had a dark complexion, some said I looked emanciated. I was very thin that time, and that was a problem, so I was rejected on many occasions,” Smriti shared. Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi didn’t happen for Smriti based on how she looked; other than Shobha Kapoor, an astrologer had told Ekta that Smriti would be a big personality one day.

Recalling the day she signed Kyunki, Smriti said, “I had gone to choose a contract where I was going to play someone’s sister. I didn’t know Ekta was in the office, and after the priest told her that I would be popular, she came out and asked me what I was signing. I was going to get around Rs 1200 to 1300 in that contract. At that time, I was a cleaner at McDonald’s, where I was paid Rs 1800 a month. So Rs 1200 a day was quite good for me.”

 

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“For me, it was a matter of survival. Ekta took that contract and tore it. She gave me a new contract, which was for Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi. She told me I would play Tulsi and she wrote my per day as Rs 1800. It was a big deal for me, because I worked on 12-hour shifts, scrubbed utensils and floors, and earned that much in a month. It felt like I had won a lottery,” Smriti shared. Smriti ruled hearts on Indian Television for eight years. During her first stint with the show, Smriti got married to Zubin Irani, and she became a mother of two.

After a sabbatical, she joined politics in 2011. Smriti served as a minister in the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Women and Child Development, and more. She was an active member of the Rajya Sabha from Gujarat from 2011 to 2019 and an active member of the Lok Sabha from 2019 to 2024 from the Amethi constituency. Now, in 2025, 25 years later, Smriti Irani had returned to Indian television to reprise her role as Smriti Irani. And once again, she receives the same love that she did 25 years ago. Today, Smriti is the highest-paid actress on Indian television. From earning Rs 1800 a month, she draws Rs 14 lakhs per episode, as per reports.