Imran Khan breaks silence on mental health struggles in marriage with Avantika: ‘Ending my marriage allowed me to heal’

Bollywood actor Imran Khan quietly disappeared from films more than a decade ago. Talking about the past, Khan, who recently starred in a cameo role for Vir Das's Happy Patel, revealed how he struggled with mental health during the last years of his marriage. Addressing speculations that his divorce from ex-wife Avantika Malik drove him into a mental crisis, Khan clarified that prioritising his mental wellbeing helped him to end his marriage and begin his healing journey.

Imran Khan on his mental health crisis

Imran Khan shared that while 8-10 years ago, he didn't face any stigma around mental health. However, he said he carried baggage as he wasn't ‘feeling good.’ He said that, unlike his easygoing, chill persona, he could see himself drifting away. “But I realised that I whatever I think of myself, I'm not actually that guy,” he told Times of India.

The Break Ke Baad actor admitted, “I had a mental health scare.”

How Imran Khan healed after divorce

Coming to rumours around his mental health issues due to divorce, Imran Khan added, “I realised that my dynamic with my partner was unhealthy. It was a relationship that started at a very young age, and when you were 18-19 years old, you don't have nearly enough life experience to have an understanding of what are healthy interpersonal dynamics and what are unhealthy dynamics.”

Imran Khan explained, "In this context, I understood that it's not happening that way, it is not working that way and in order for myself to be the healthiest, best version of myself, I have to remove myself from this relationship. I don't blame anyone for this. I've not been in the media. I've been out of public sight and in the absence of me actually being there and speaking, rumours, gossip, all of this stuff kind of speculation just goes about, so things get muddled and conflated. Within that, I think a lot of people took my divorce to be the thing that was impactful for me and that I was impacted by by the separation that triggered a mental health crisis. The truth is far from it. I was, in fact, in the worst years of it during the last couple of years of my marriage. It is my making the choice to end my marriage that was the turning point in my personal mental health journey, which allowed me to actually heal and get better. It is because we were not we were not in sync. We were not able to support each other being the best version of ourselves."

Imran Khan and Avantika Malik separated in 2019. He was spotted with his rumoured girlfriend, Lekha Washington on different occasions.