Sonali Bendre admits she wasn’t ‘fond’ of Salman Khan

Sonali Bendre was diagnosed with stage four metastatic cancer in 2018. She has been candid about her recovery journey, including undergoing treatment in New York and Mumbai. Recently, Sonali revealed that her ‘Hum Saath Saath Hain’ co-star Salman Khan was a major source of support after the diagnosis - from visiting her in New York to regularly checking in through her husband. She also recalled that during their shoot for the 1999 Sooraj Barjatya film, she wasn’t particularly fond of Salman.

In an interview with ANI, Sonali recalled their early days and said, “There are two sides to Salman. You can either love him or you will hate him. And at that point, I wasn’t fond of him. When I was doing ‘Hum Saath Saath Hain’, I had my close-ups that we were doing when he was standing behind the camera and making faces at me. But that was Salman. He’s a prankster. He’s like a child.”

But Salman Khan’s caring side emerged years later. “The same person who’s making faces behind the camera is the same person who has made two trips maybe to New York where I’m there to see if I’m okay with my illness. He would call up and check with my husband and say, ‘Are you sure you’ve got the right doctors? I think you should get in touch with these doctors also’,” Sonali added.

Sonali also spoke about living in ‘denial’ after her cancer diagnosis. “I was in denial. I would actually get up at night and feel like it’s a dream. But then you wake up and realise it’s not a dream, nothing has changed, it’s the reality,” she shared.

The actress continued, “The thing about cancer is the treatment is so harsh, especially when you go through your regular chemotherapy and radiation and all of that. Those are so harsh. Your body is just killed from the inside. And just to heal from it and get back to doing the work that I do. Our job is very physical. Not just mental, but very, very physical also. So, there is no ‘I’m not up to it,’ but the set is standing. The dates are there. You have to go to work. You can’t say somebody else take over for me today. So, I needed to really heal and then get back to it, which I have done now.”