Amitabh Bachchan told Jaya Bachchan before their wedding he didn’t ‘want a wife who’ll work 9-5’: Work but not every day

Veteran actor Jaya Bachchan revealed that her husband-actor Amitabh Bachchan had told her, ahead of their wedding, that he didn’t ‘want a wife who will be (working) 9-5’. Speaking on the latest episode of her granddaughter Navya Naveli Nanda’s podcast What The Hell Navya, Jaya also shared why she and Amitabh Bachchan had to prepone the date of their wedding. Jaya also told her fans that her father never wanted her to get married. (Also Read | Jaya Bachchan reveals Amitabh Bachchan became ‘active parent’ after Shweta’s marriage)

Navya asked Jaya how Amitabh proposed to her and she said, “I was shooting in Calcutta and we had decided that we will go for a holiday if one movie that we had done is a hit. Zanjeer. The movie was a hit. I was shooting for a movie in Calcutta and nana (grandpa) called and said, ‘There’s a problem’. We had decided we will get married in October because by then my work would have reduced. He said, ‘I definitely don’t want a wife who will be 9-5. Please work, you must work but not every day. You choose your projects, work with the right people’.”

She continued, “I said okay. He then called me and said, ‘My parents are saying you can’t go for a holiday with Jaya, if you want to for a holiday with her, you marry her’. He said, ‘What do you think?’ I said, ‘Well we were planning to get married in October so it’s okay we will do it in June. Khatam (The end).”

“I said, ‘But you will have to speak to my parents’. He called my father and spoke to him. My father wasn’t very happy, my father never wanted me to get married. We were three sisters. He said, ‘I have not brought you into this world to just educate yourself, get married and settle down and have children. I want you all to do something in life’. That was my father. And then he spoke to my father who said, ‘That’s fine. We don’t want a big wedding. My parents are alive, I want them to attend’,” Jaya added. She said it was a ‘quite wedding’ with Amitabh at her godmother’s house in Mumbai.

Jaya and Amitabh Bachchan tied the knot in 1973. They welcomed two children–daughter Shweta Bachchan (1974) and son-actor Abhishek Bachchan (1976). Jaya started her acting career as an adult with Guddi (1971), directed by Hrishikesh Mukherjee.

She and Amitabh featured together in several films such as Zanjeer and Abhimaan (1973), Chupke Chupke, Mili and Sholay (1975), Silsila (1981), and Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham (2001). Jaya will be seen next in Karan Johar’s directorial Rocky aur Rani Ki Prem Kahani. The film also stars Ranveer Singh, Alia Bhatt, Dharmendra and Shabana Azmi and will release in 2023.