Shobhaa De says Hema Malini was sidelined by Dharmendra’s first family after his death

Shobhaa De says Hema Malini was sidelined by Dharmaendra first family after his death

Shobhaa De has alleged that veteran actress Hema Malini was “completely sidelined” by Dharmendra’s first family after his passing. According to De, this exclusion explains why Hema Malini did not attend Dharmendra’s prayer meet, which was organised by his first wife, Prakash Kaur, along with sons Sunny Deol and Bobby Deol.

Shobhaa De shared that Hema Malini could have “hijacked those emotional moments" after getting left out by Dharmendra's family, but she didn't.

In a conversation with Barkha Dutt, columnist and author Shobhaa De reflected on the family dynamics surrounding the the late actor Dharmendra. She alleged that Hema Malini was excluded by the family of Prakash Kaur, Dharmendra’s first wife, following his passing.

She said, “Must have been a particularly difficult and hard decision… To be totally left out by the first family from something that she had spent 45 years of her own life… Nourishing, cherishing, which had enriched her life. She had two daughters from this marriage. It must have hurt terribly, but she kept all that for her own privacy. However she wished to deal with it and when she did have a public function, I thought she conducted it with utmost dignity, not just for herself but for the person she had lost..”

“Given the fact that Hema is a towering personality herself, the idea that she chose dignity over making a public display of one-upmanship, I think, says a lot about her character. She could so easily have, in a way, it’s not a nice word but, hijacked those emotional moments right after Dharam ji passed away. The media would have loved to cover every tear and every gasp that she may have taken and intruded into her privacy and completely stripped her of the dignity that obviously matters so much to her," Shobhaa further shared.

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Dharmendra passed away at the age of 89 on November 24, just days before he was set to turn 90 on December 8. The veteran actor had been discharged from Mumbai’s Breach Candy Hospital earlier this month and was recovering at home at the time of his demise. His last rites were performed in Mumbai on November 25. Dharmendra will make his final on-screen appearance in the upcoming war drama Ikkis, which also stars Agastya Nanda.