Samantha Ruth Prabhu wanted to start a family with Naga Chaitanya, reveals producer Neelima Guna

Producer Neelima Guna revealed that South actress Samantha Ruth Prabhu was planning to start a family with Naga Chaitanya. The duo had announced their separation on social media last week.

New Delhi: Prominent film producer Neelima Guna has slammed rumours regarding actress Samantha Ruth Prabhu and Naga Chaitanya's divorce. Many rumours claiming that Samantha was involved in illicit affairs, abortions, surrogacy have been floating around since the duo announced their divorce a week ago. 

Neelima, who has worked with Samantha earlier, has now come to her defence amid the controversial rumours.

In an interview with Hyderabad Times, she revealed that Samantha was, in fact, planning to start a family with Naga Chaitanya.

Neelima said, "When my father, director Gunasekhar garu approached Samantha last year for Shaakunthalam, she loved the story and was excited. But, she told us shooting must be wrapped up by July or August as she was planning to start a family with Naga Chaitanya."

She revealed that Samantha had desires to become a mother and had asked the former to make changes to the shooting schedule as she didn't want the film to hinder her plan of beginning a family.

"She wanted to be a mother; she told us that was her priority. Period films take time and she was really apprehensive to say yes. But we assured that due to extensive pre-production, we had cut down on a lot of time. She was happy and onboard as soon as she heard this. She wanted to plan a family, take a break and look after her children. We didn’t take a break through the schedules because we wanted to accommodate her request," Neelima revealed.

Earlier, Samantha took to her Instagram stories to hit back against malicious rumours against her. She spoke about how divorce is "an extremely painful process" but "relentless personal attacks" has made it even tougher.

Announcing separation, ChaySam (as they were fondly called by fans) wrote in a joint statement shared on social media: To all our well-wishers. After much deliberation and thought Chay and I have decided to part ways as husband and wife to pursue our own paths. We are fortunate to have a friendship of over a decade that was the very core of our relationship which we believe will always hold a special bond between us. We request our fans, well-wishers and the media to support us during this difficult time and give us the privacy we need to move on. Thanking you for your support.

For the unversed, the rumours of ChaySam divorce (their fans call them that) gained ground after Sam dropped Akkineni (her surname) from social media handles.