When Govinda broke off his engagement with now-wife Sunita, ‘played dirty’ with Neelam: ‘I was merciless’

Govinda said he was “very conscious” of Neelam. “Of the difference in our backgrounds and upbringing. But gradually, we crossed these obstacles, and I started opening up. We became friends. And we had so many films together. We met so often and the more I got to know her, the more I liked her,” said. “She was the kind of woman any man would have lost his heart to. I lost mine,” he added.

He confessed that he could not stop praising Neelam, even in front of Sunita, and wanted Sunita to be like Neelam. “I couldn’t stop praising her. To my friends, to my family. Even to Sunita, to whom I was committed. I would tell Sunita to change herself and become like Neelam. I would tell her to learn from her. I was merciless. Sunita would get irritated. She would tell me, ‘You fell in love with me because of what I am, don’t ever try to change me’. But I was so confused. I didn’t know what to own,” he said.

Govinda and Neelam were a hit pair in the 1980s.

In the same interview, Govinda confessed that he “never meant to get so seriously involved with Sunita. was looking for a girl to go around with.” He said that once he had to perform a romantic scene but he was very uncomfortable, which is when his brother suggested that he should maybe start going out with someone to “get some experience of romance.” “At that point in time, I met Sunita. I admit that my involvement with her was a totally calculated move on my part. And I paid a heavy price for it,” he joked. Govinda said that he had already made a commitment to Sunita and the “harm was done.”

He recalled that during one of his fights with Sunita, she said something about Neelam and he “called it quits.” He said, “I asked Sunita to leave me. I broke off my engagement with her. And had Sunita not called me after five days and coaxed me into it again, I would probably have married Neelam.” He added, “I wanted to marry her. And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.”

Govinda insisted that the only reason that he could not leave Sunita was that he had given her his word. “Just because I had fallen in love elsewhere, I couldn’t overlook my commitment towards Sunita. If there was no sense of duty in a man, this would go on,” he said. The Hero No 1 actor said that Neelam was not very keen on marrying him as she was very focused on her career. He added, “She wanted an intelligent, well-to-do, good-looking man as a husband. And I was anything but that. She belonged to the upper strata and I was a dehati, coming from a lower-middle-class family. We were poles apart in every way. We probably would never have been successful as a married couple. And maybe, Neelam realised that.”

Govinda confessed that after his wedding, he did not declare he was married. Even Neelam, who was working with him closely at the time, did not know that he was a married man. Govinda said that he tried to “exploit my personal relationship with Neelam for professional ends. I played dirty with her. I should have told her that I was married.”

Neelam married actor Samir Soni in 2011. In 2021, Govinda and Neelam shared screen space when they were both guests on the reality show Super Dancer 4. The duo were seen in movies like Ilzaam, Farz Ki Jun, Love 86 amongst many others.