When Salman Khan spoke about dad Salim Khan marrying Helen: ‘I was about 10 at that time…’

When scriptwriter Salim Khan married actor-dancer Helen in 1981, he was a married man with four children so unsurprisingly his actions were not wholly accepted by his family at once. But after his first wife Salma accepted the relationship, the kids followed suit. Salman Khan opened up about this phase of their life during his early days in the movies.

In an interview with Filmfare in 1990, Salman said that since he is very attached to his mother, he hated when his mother would wait for his father to come home. Salman said, “My mom’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I can’t say why, I don’t think explanations are needed. We get along very well because basically, I’m a mama’s boy. I can’t bear to see her unhappy. She was very hurt when my father married again, I’d hate it when she’d wait up for him to come home.”

Salman added, “Then, gradually, mom started accepting it. Dad explained to us that he still loved mom and that he’ll always be around. I was about 10 at that time and it took us quite some time to really accept Helen aunty. Today she’s a part of our family. Our whole family is like a closed fist, each one of us knows that if any one of us needs the other at any stage, we’ll be there.” The interview was printed 31 years ago and it seems like the family is still united despite the many ups and downs.

Helen, who was known for her many dance numbers through the 1960s and 1970s, had also opened up about marrying Salim Khan in an earlier interview with Filmfare.

She had then said that she felt guilty about marrying a man who already had a wife and four children. “The fact that Salim was a married man did disturb me and I did feel guilty in the beginning. Something about Salim set him apart from the rest of the industry men. I respected him tremendously as he tried to help me out without trying to exploit me,” she said.

Salim had then said, “As kids they had their hostility. But they reacted the way their mother did. As I told you very honestly, it wasn’t as if Salma accepted the relationship happily straightaway and thanked me for it or said, you deserve an Oscar for it. So at that time, there was hostility from the children.”