Twinkle Khanna reveals why she never took husband Akshay Kumar's last name after marriage

Twinkle Khanna and hr superstar hubby Akshay Kumar have been one of Bollywood's golden couples. The couple has been married for nearly 25 years, share two children together, and yet, Twinkle has been one of the few stars who has not taken on her husband's surname. Now, opening up about her decision to keep her maiden name, the actress and author admitted in her recent chat, that the thought "never even occurred" to her.

Twinkle on not changing her surname

Speaking to BBC, Khanna touched upon topics of identity, privilege, and even gender norms, while discussing her book. Addressing the subject about changing her surname, she said, "I think I’ve been married for about 25 odd years. So has my sister. And at that point of time, again, like I said, feminism was not in our lexicon, but we never changed our last name, we are the Khanna sisters."




Revealing that the subject has been brought up in family gatherings as well, she recalled a 'batty aunt' asking her, "Y'all are Pagal sisters, you know, why haven't you changed? Yeah, mad sisters, why haven't you changed your name?" Recalling her hilarious response, she said, "If I had to change my name, I changed my first name, it's Twinkle."

Twinkle says changing name never occured to her

Revealing why she never changed her name, she said, “I like Khanna." She went on to add, "These are not things that we thought about, it just didn't occur to us that we had to change our last name. And as you said, that a lot of women in India would not probably have the same privilege, isn't it? A lot of them would have to bow down to patriarchy even today."

Twinkle also reflected on how her upbringing shaped her worldview, adding that she was privileged that she grew up unaware of patriarchy because she never witnessed it at home. "I was very fortunate that I didn't even realise patriarchy existed till I was in my 30s. I had no clue because my worldview was shaped in such a way that I thought we are equal, we are superior, we are everything."

Twinkle on patriarchy in the film industry

She revealed that it was only after entering the film industry that she began recognising the gender bias around her. She recalled, "Every time I came across an incident, which was blatant patriarchy, I brushed it away. For example, when I started working as a young actress, if you know, the actor came late, and nobody said a word to him. But I was fired even if I was 15 minutes late. Or if he had a bigger room, or you know, he had his own hours, he was called much later than I was called, I just brushed it away, thinking he's more successful, he's famous, he's senior. I didn't realise that it was only because he was a man and I was a woman. It took me a long time to figure that out. Because I had never seen that. I had never seen inequality within my home.”

Khanna was most recently seen hosting a chat show with actress Kajol. The series concluded on a high note, becoming the streaming platform's highest-viewed show.

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