Dia Mirza reveals why she took her stepfather’s surname when she competed in Miss India 2000: ‘He was…’

Dia Mirza opened up about her past, and shared what her childhood was like in a recent interview. The actor shared what her late biological father Frank Hendrich and her late stepfather Ahmed Mirza were like, and the relationship she shared with them. Dia also revealed why she took her stepfather’s surname before she entered the Miss India pageant. Read more: Dia Mirza on participating in Miss India 20 years ago

Dia was born in Hyderabad. While her late father was of German origin, her mother Deepa Mirza is Bengali. After participating in Miss India, and later being crowned Miss Asia Pacific 2000 at the age of 18, Dia made her debut in Bollywood with Rehna Hai Tere Dil Mein (2001). The film also featured R Madhavan and Saif Ali Khan. In a recent interview, Dia spoke about changing her surname from Hendrich to Mirza.

“I loved my stepfather; he was a remarkable man. A lot of what I have learned in life especially the values that have held me in good stead, and this is something I can vouch for, are all values that he gave me. We had a very beautiful relationship that started off as friendship. Then I think as I grew older and I recognised that I had spent more years of my life with him, and him as a parent, he just became more and more my father, and that’s why I took on his surname when I joined the Miss India pageant,” Dia told Bollywood Hungama.

While Dia’s biological father died when she was nine, her stepfather died in 2003. Speaking further about her relationship with her stepfather, Dia said, “It was amazing how he never tried to take my father’s place, but made his own place in my heart. Unfortunately, I lost him as well, when I was 23, and that was a huge, huge, huge loss because I think whatever said and done, the security blanket that a father figure gives you in life, nobody else can. When you lose a father that young, and I had lost two fathers within one lifetime, it’s very hard.”

Dia gave birth to her first child, son Avyaan Azaad Rekhi, in May 2021. The actor and Mumbai-based businessman Vaibhav Rekhi had married in an intimate ceremony in February 2021. Dia was last seen in filmmaker Anubhav Sinha’s Thappad, which featured Taapsee Pannu in the lead role. The actor will soon be seen in Tarun Dudeja’s Dhak Dhak. It also stars Ratna Pathak Shah, Fatima Sana Shaikh, and Sanjana Sanghi. Dia will also be reuniting with Anubhav in his upcoming film, Bheed, slated to release later this year.