4 min readNew DelhiAug 6, 2026 08:07 PM IST
Actor Saif Ali Khan was only 21 when he married Amrita Singh, who was 33, after a short, whirlwind romance in 1991. The wedding happened in such circumstances that no one from Saif or Amrita’s family was in attendance. Saif’s sisters, Soha Ali Khan and Saba Pataudi, learnt about the wedding while they were at school after the news was out in the media and were asked not to speak about it to anyone. In a recent chat, Soha and Saba recalled this time and said that they were really young at the time.
‘We were told not to tell anyone’
Talking to Neha Dhupia and Angad Bedi, Saba shared, “He got married when we were in school.” Saba was just 15 then, and Soha was 13-years-old. Saba recalled, “We got a call in the principal’s office from the parents saying you won’t tell anyone anything. We don’t know how real the news is because it was in the newspapers by then. So we were told that we shouldn’t tell anyone.”
Neha was quite shocked to learn that the sisters didn’t go for Saif’s wedding and to this Soha said, “Also, we were very young then. I remember my French teacher told me. It was a last-minute affair.”
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Amrita’s name was changed to Aziza during wedding
Previously, designer duo Abu Jani and Sandeep Khosla spoke about Amrita and Saif’s impromptu wedding, and said that they signed as witnesses. Talking to Namrata Zakaria on her YouTube channel, they said, “We signed as witnesses at their nikaahnama. One fine day, they came to us and said, ‘We want to get married now!’ It was Saif. Dingy [Amrita] was still undecided. They were in love, and he was living with her; it must have been six or eight months. He was ready for it. She was yes-no, yes-no.”
They further recalled calling a maulvi and a pandit for the wedding. “She got ready in whatever fit her, because there was no time… Fortunately, from her mother, she got some fantastic jewellery. Saif wore a bandhgala. Then, the maulvi said, ‘What is your name? Your name has to start with A.’ All four of us started looking at each other, and the pandit says, ‘Aziza’. That was a runaway bride, it was insane. Driving back, her mother called her… Eventually, they took it in their stride,” he recalled.
Saif Ali Khan and Amrita Singh got divorced in 2004. (Express Archive)
Sharmila Tagore started crying after she got to know
During an earlier appearance on Koffee with Karan, Saif and his mother Sharmila Tagore also spoke about his wedding with Amrita. Sharmila recalled that Saif came to meet her and broke the news in person. “He said, ‘I have something to tell you’, and then he told me. I don’t know what I was doing, but I was quiet, and he says, ‘Amma, your colour is changing, you are looking different.’ I said, ‘Well okay, we will talk about it later, not now’. After he left, I rang Tiger and told him. There was also a long silence there. We left it at that and then I said, ‘I would like to meet her’,” she said.
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Saif said that even though Sharmila was “supportive”, a “big tear fell out of her eye.” He shared, “She was supportive when I did it. She told me, ‘I believe you are living with someone and you are doing some things’. I said yes. And she said, ‘Just don’t get married’. And I said, ‘I got married yesterday’, and a big tear fell out of her eye and she started crying and I felt I really hurt her. And she said, ‘You really hurt me, why didn’t you tell me?’ That’s actually what happened,” he recalled.
Saif and Amrita’s marriage ended after 13 years. They share two children – daughter Sara Ali Khan and son Ibrahim Ali Khan. In 2012, Saif married actor Kareena Kapoor, and he shared two sons with her – Taimur Ali Khan and Jeh Ali Khan. Amrita never married again.
