When Vyjayanthimala said that her affair with Raj Kapoor was a ‘publicity stunt’, an angry Rishi Kapoor called her out: ‘She has no right to distort facts’

The Madhumati actor published her biography in 2007 and the Kapoor family was not very pleased with how she had dismissed her affair with Raj Kapoor and called him publicity driven. Raj Kapoor’s son, late actor Rishi Kapoor addressed this in his memoir Khullam Khulla: Rishi Kapoor Uncensored.

Raj Kapoor and Vjayanthimala in Sangam. (Photo: Express Archive)

Rishi shared that during his father’s with Vyjayanthimala, his mother had moved out of the house. “I was very young when my father had an affair with Nargis Ji, and so was not affected by it. I don’t remember feeling anything was amiss at home either. But I do remember moving into the Natraj Hotel on Marine Drive with my mom during the time Papa was involved with Vyjayanthimala,” he had written. Rishi wrote that his mother had decided to “put her foot down” and had decided that she won’t give in until Raj Kapoor ended the affair.

Rishi had also addressed Vyjayanthimala’s denial of the affair. He wrote, “In an interview published a few years ago, Vyjayanthimala denied ever having an affair with my father. She claimed that he had manufactured the romance because of his hunger for publicity. I was livid. How could she be so blasé; and pretend the affair never happened? She had no right to distort facts just because he was no longer around to defend the truth.”

“When her (Vyjayanthimala) book came out, many friends in the media contacted me to know my reaction. I told them what I thought. With time, my anger subsided. I admit that people throw light on uncomfortable facts for their own reasons, but I can say with full certainty that if Papa was alive, she would not have denied the affair so blatantly or called him publicity hungry,” he had written.