“Was Very Difficult To Sleep”: Kareena Kapoor Talks About Saif Ali Khan Attack For The First Time
Kareena Kapoor has opened up about the attack on her husband Saif Ali Khan, admitting that she still hasn’t fully processed it.
In January this year, a chilling home intrusion involving Bollywood star Saif Ali Khan left the nation shaken. An intruder managed to breach security and enter Saif and Kareena Kapoor Khan’s Mumbai home. As Saif intervened to protect his children, he was stabbed. The harrowing incident, which unfolded in one of the most secure cities in the country, stunned both the film industry and the public. Months later, Kareena Kapoor Khan has opened up about how the episode continues to haunt her and the emotional toll it has taken on her family.
During a session at We The Women, Kareena spoke about the stabbing incident for the first time. Kareena said, “I am still kind of struggling with what it does to see someone there in your child's room. In Mumbai, you never really hear about such incidents. It is very common in the US. In Mumbai, we have never really heard about such incidents. We have still not come to terms 100 per cent. At least I haven't. I was very anxious for the first couple of months. It was very difficult to sleep and get back to the person with that kind of normalcy.”
The ‘Jab We Met’ star compared the incident to death and shared that while the memory fades over time, she hasn’t forgotten that fateful night. “With time, I realised that the memory fades more and more. It’s there in your heart. It is like death. When you lose someone, you never really get over it. That’s what I have always perceived – that you never really get over that but the memory fades day by day,” she said.
Despite the trauma, she’s made a conscious decision not to let fear dictate her parenting. “I don't want to live in that fear for my children because that's also wrong to put that stress onto them. So, it's been a tough journey to manoeuvre from fear and anxiety to balancing the fact that I am a mother and I am also a wife. It was a combination of so much understanding that this is what I have to kind of deal with. I am just happy and thank God that we are safe,” she said.
She recalled how her younger son Jeh now imagines Saif to be a superhero – “like Batman or Iron Man” – for protecting the family.
Kareena believes the incident has brought her family closer and made them stronger as a unit. She also expressed hope that the traumatic incident will ultimately make her sons stronger and more resilient.
She said, “Yes, they have seen blood and everything but I am hoping that that experience will make them different kind of men. They have been so sheltered and then they have seen this, so somehow I feel that this experience has brought them out of that sheltered life and a little more into reality that this can happen. Of course, they shouldn’t have seen this at 4 and 8 years old, but I have to look at something out of it.”
The aftermath wasn’t easy. Social media trolls and some TV channels questioned Kareena’s whereabouts and even cast doubt on the authenticity of the attack. Speaking to Barkha Dutt on Mojo Story, Kareena expressed her disappointment at the media’s coverage.
She said, “It was utter garbage. It makes me really… not angry because it is a really bad kind of an emotion, I never want to be angry because I don’t think it is in me, but I just feel really sad that that’s what humanity has come. Is that the kind of consumption that people really want? Is that what we are going to give them? Are you going to laud other people’s grief?”
She added, “That is what makes me sad. Is this the digital age that we’re talking about? Because that’s not where we all belong because humanity is much more than just consumption.”
When asked if she has changed as a person after the attack, Kareena responded, “It has shaken me to the core but I can’t live in that fear. Also we Punjabis say, ‘Bala tal gai’ and that’s what I am believing in. I don’t think any family should see what we saw. It has been an uphill task.”
For context, Saif had intervened when a house staff member raised an alarm upon spotting the intruder in Jeh’s room. Saif got into a scuffle and was stabbed. He was later rushed to the hospital – along with Taimur – in an auto-rickshaw and underwent an emergency surgery.
