Early lifeRajiv Hari Om Bhatia as Akshay Kumar was born in Amritsar in Sept. 9, 1967 to a Punjabi family. His father was a government worker. From a very young age, he was recognised as a performer, particularly as a dancer. Kumar was raised in Delhi's Chandni Chowk neighbourhood before moving to Mumbai. In Mumbai, he lived in Koliwada, which was another Punjabi dominated area. He studied at Don Bosco School and then Khalsa College, where he took an interest in sports.
He studied martial arts in Bangkok and worked as a chef. He then came back to Mumbai, where he started teaching martial arts. One of his students happened to be a photographer and recommended him to do modelling. The student gave him a modelling assignment for a small company. For his two hours posing in front of the camera, he got Rs. 5,000, compared to his previous salary of Rs. 4,000 in one month. That was one of the main reasons why he chose to be a model. After a couple of months of modelling, Kumar was finally offered a lead role by producer Pramod Chakravarthy for the movie Deedar.
Personal life
During his years in Bollywood, Kumar was romantically linked with several of his co-star actresses like Pooja Batra, Raveena Tandon, and Shilpa Shetty. After being engaged twice to actress Twinkle Khanna, the daughter of veteran actors Rajesh Khanna and Dimple Kapadia, he finally married her on January 14, 2001. Their son named Aarav was born on September 15, 2002.
In 2007, a leading Mumbai tabloid newspaper printed a story saying that Kumar and his wife had fallen out and Kumar had moved out of his home, staying at a hotel instead. On July 26, 2007 the couple sent a legal notice to the tabloid, declaring that the rumour was false. Kumar said:
| “ | The article is a clear representation of careless and irresponsible journalism. The freedom of press comes with responsibilities, which seems to have been put aside to give way to shock value journalism. | ” |
An FIR was registered by the Vakola Police on April 2009 against Akshay Kumar and Twinkle Khanna under Setion 294 of the Indian Penal Code for an act during the Lakme Fashion Week in which Twinkle unbuttoned the jeans of Akshay..
