Shahid Kapoor was extremely fond of his grandfather. After his parents Pankaj Kapur and Neelima Azim divorced when he was three, he continued living in Delhi with his mother and maternal grandparents, who were journalists for the Russian magazine Sputnik. Shahid remembers his grandpa walking him to school every single day. “He would talk to me about dad, with whom he shared a great relationship, and read out his letters to me.”
He would unfailingly meet his father Pankaj on his birthday. Apparently, Pankaj, who was a struggling actor in Mumbai, would visit Kapoor only once a year on his birthday.
Shahid apparently continues to use the surname Khattar on his passport. When his mother Neelima married actor Rajesh Khattar, Shahid continued living with them until they separated in 2001.
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The first time he felt the tug of stardom? That would have been the time he performed during a stage show at the Shiamak Davar institute to the songs ‘Vogue’ and ‘Golden Eye’. He admitted it was the first time he “felt like a star”.
Look closely at the background dancers in Dil To Pagal Hai (1997) and Taal (1999), which Davar choreographed, and you just might spot Shahid’s lanky frame among the many dancers. In fact, it was supposedly a chance comment from Shah Rukh Khan wondering whether Davar had deliberately stopped feeding his dancers, that inspired him to get buff!
Shahid remains a bit of a mystery. While some sections of the media dub him the ‘friendly, chirpy, affable frat-boy type; someone you’d want to play video games with on a Sunday, but keep the hell away from your sister’ others have labeled him a recluse and described him as arrogant and temperamental. It was believed that this perceived media image of his made filmmakers think twice before approaching him with films. “I just don’t socialize much, I don’t party too much, I don’t know what to say to the media if I’m not talking about a film that I am doing, so yeah, maybe I am perceived as a snob,” is how Shahid tried explaining his image.
Despite his father’s best efforts, Shahid turned vegetarian only after reading the book 'Life is Fair' by Brian Hines. So inspired was he by the book that he also inspired his then-girlfriend Kareena Kapoor to give up meats.
While Shahid’s relationships with Kareena Kapoor and Priyanka Chopra garnered much attention, his relationship with Hrishita Bhatt (they apparently started dating after featuring in Aryans’ music video, 'Aankhon Mein Tera Hi Chehra') stayed below the radar. He has also been linked to Vidya Balan, Amrita Rao, and Sania Mirza.
