5 min readNew DelhiJun 19, 2026 08:01 AM IST
Dilip Kumar was 44 when he married 22-year-old Saira Bano in 1966. But after 16 years of their marriage, Dilip married Asma Rehman in 1982. He never told Saira about Asma, and she learnt about his second wife from the newspapers, which, naturally, left her shocked. Soon after marrying Asma, Dilip realised the gravity of his mistake, and divorced her. Meanwhile, Dilip was under intense scrutiny by the press, and Asma also bore the brunt of the situation. After the divorce, she moved to Canada as she just could not have any privacy here.
Asma Rehman moved to Canada after divorce from Dilip Kumar
In an interview back in 1983, shared by the YouTube channel ITMB Shows, Asma spoke about moving to Vancouver, Canada, after her marriage with Dilip ended. When asked about the constant intrusion and speculation about her marriage with the Bollywood star, she said, “What do I do? Even I don’t like it but what can one do about it? Even in India, the media was after my life and I thought it will be more peaceful in Vancouver but it feels like I am not meant to have peace.” She then added, “I feel there is a total lack of privacy no matter where I go. I really don’t like it.”
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In the same chat, she said that she moved to Canada because she already had family there. But the primary reason behind her move was an attempt to get away from the spotlight. “It was because of the media which was hounding me. I just wanted to get away from it but I just can’t,” she said.
This was the era of tabloids and the relationship between her and Dilip Kumar was all anyone could talk about, especially since he was a married man. Asma claimed that 95 percent of the things written about their relationship were fabricated. “95 percent of the things that were written about me were false,” she said. She also claimed that the conversations between her and Dilip were private, but people had a wild imagination. “Conversations that take place between two people, which are personal and private in nature, how can anyone know about them? But these people’s imagination is just so wild that they just make up stories,” she said.
Dilip Kumar and Saira Banu got married in 1966. (Photo: Express Archives)
Dilip Kumar regretted his decision to marry Asma Rehman
Years after Asma opened up about this chapter of her life, Dilip Kumar discussed this incident in his memoir Dilip Kumar: The Substance and the Shadow. He shared that he first met Asma through his sisters in Hyderabad during a cricket match. He soon started noticing that she would show up almost everywhere he went, as if someone had told her about his itinerary. But, regardless, he did end up marrying her, and was deeply aware how he had hurt Saira in the process.
“I can never forget or forgive myself for the hurt I caused to Saira and the shattering of the unshakeable faith she had in me,” he wrote and added, “Saira stood by me when I admitted the grave mistake and asked her to give me some time to undo the wrong through proper legal processes and restore the sanctity of our marriage of sixteen years. I requested Saira to give me some time to sort it all out.”
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Dilip also signed a “letter of commitment” to Saira as he wanted to restore the promise he once made to her parents, that he wouldn’t engage in a second marriage. He believed that this episode “strengthened our closeness and our emotional dependence on each other.”
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Dilip Kumar’s sisters arranged his second marriage
It was speculated that Dilip Kumar’s sisters wanted him to get married to Asma, because they did not particularly like Saira. Udaytara Nayar, who wrote Dilip’s memoir, previously told City Express, “There are many versions about it but the truth is that the whole thing was orchestrated by Dilip Sahab’s two sisters. They had never liked Saira and the book reveals how they treated her when she came into Sahab’s life as a wife. They created circumstances where Sahab was trapped and this second marriage was their way of getting back at Saira.”
When the news about Dilip’s marriage with Asma came out in the press, it was speculated that Dilip had married again because he wanted to have children, but had none with Saira. Dilip later revealed that he and Saira lost a baby boy in 1972, in the eighth month of pregnancy.
Dilip and Saira were married until his death in 2021.
