Kabir Bedi reveals how he dealt with son’s 'traumatic' suicide, 'humiliating' bankruptcy in Hollywood

Veteran Bollywood actor Kabir Bedi recently spoke about his son's suicide and his 'humiliating' bankruptcy in Hollywood in a latest interview. Although it was difficult, he said that he had to find ways to rise above the tragedies.

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New Delhi: Veteran Bollywood actor Kabir Bedi recently spoke about his most traumatic experiences in a candid conversation with a digital news platform. He explained that his son's suicide and his tragic love story with late actress Parveen Babi whom he lost in 2005, had shattered him as a person. The actor also revealed that he also went through bankruptcy in Hollywood and found it to be a shameful experience for an actor. However, he stayed resilient and found ways to reinvent himself with every obstacle he faced.

He told Brut India, "I went through traumatic experiences with my son’s suicide, with my bankruptcy in Hollywood. It’s very humiliating for a celebrity to be bankrupted. But you have to find ways of rising and resurrecting yourself. All through my life, I’ve reinvented myself."

The actor's son Siddharth committed suicide in 1997 at the age of 25. He had been diagnosed with schizophrenia, a debilitating mental illness. In an earlier interview with Bollywood Hungama, Kabir Bedi revealed he felt a ton of guilt after his son's suicide as he wasn't able to stop him or convince him to live.

He said, "The guilt one suffers when somebody in your family commits suicide is enormous, no matter how much you try. You always feel you could have done something to save that person's life. Why have you failed to convince him to live, why have you not tried to stop him in some way? There's always guilt and you have to live with that guilt as well. When something that traumatic happens, when your son commits suicide, the wound heals, but the scars will always remain. You learn to live with it because it's truly been an experience to go way. It will always remain there in some way."

Apart from this huge tragedy in his life, he also dealt with the death of his romantic partner Parveen Babi in 2005. She had died of multiple organ failure and her body was found days after her death.

In his autoboigraphy, 'Stories I Must Tell: The Emotional Journey of an Actor', he had written about the same. Here's a passage from the book: "In the end, I learned how Parveen had died. Her body was found in her Juhu flat four days after she died, a leg rotted by gangrene, a wheelchair by her bed. A lonely and tragic end of a star who had once been the fantasy of millions. Three men who had known and loved her - Mahesh, Danny and I - came for her funeral at the Muslim cemetery in Juhu. It was a solemn burial with Islamic rites and chants. We carried her body with relatives to a dimly lit grave. I felt for all she had suffered with a sorrow that came from my depths. Each of us had known her in ways not many knew. Each of us had loved her as only each one knew."