Juhi Chawla and Jay Mehta have been married for 29 years.
Juhi Chawla once recalled that her marriage with Jay Mehta was lowkey because she was scared of losing her career.
During the heights of her career in the 1990s, actress Juhi Chawla clandestinely tied the knot with businessman Jay Mehta, veiling their union from the public eye. In a previous interview, Juhi disclosed how the absence of mobile phone cameras in that era allowed their secret nuptials to remain hidden. Fearing for her career, Juhi opted for a covert marriage with Jay in 1995, and the couple now shares two children, Jhanvi and Arjun.
In a conversation with former journalist Rajeev Masand on his YouTube channel a few years back, Juhi revealed, “I was just about established and just starting to do well. That’s the time Jay was serenading me, and I was afraid of losing my career just when I kind of got there. So, I wanted to carry on and this seemed the midway, that let’s keep it quiet and it’s okay, you carry on working.”
Reflecting on that period, Juhi shared the challenging circumstances she faced with the loss of her mother, expressing, “That year my mother passed away as well so I had another tragedy and that was a very difficult time for me as well because I felt I was going to lose everything I had, everything I loved, my work an my mum.”
During a recent discussion at an event organized by the Gujarat Chamber of Commerce & Industry, Juhi shared a heartwarming anecdote about her wedding. Juhi revealed how her mother-in-law intervened to simplify their grand wedding plans, prompting the cancellation of nearly 2000 invitations that had been dispatched worldwide. She recounted the intimate ceremony that followed, where they exchanged vows in a cozy setting surrounded by only their immediate family and closest friends, “She convinced the family to not have the big wedding and I got married at home with just the family and closest friends in attendance. So with just 80-90 people present. Imagine your mother-in-law cancelling the invites that had already been sent out,” she stated.
It was in the year 1998 when Juhi was shooting for the movie Duplicate, when she received the bad news about the untimely demise of her mother Mona Chawla, in an accident. Jay, who had seen his own share of misfortune as he lost his first wife Sujata Birla in a plane crash in 1990, comforted Juhi and helped her cope with the mammoth loss. “That was a very difficult time for me, because I felt I was going to lose everything I loved,” the actress had earlier told CNN-News18.
“From then on, everywhere I went, he turned up. Everywhere I looked, he was there with flowers and notes and gifts. Every day! On my birthday, I remember he sent me a truckload of red roses. I was like, ‘What do you do with a truckload of flowers?’ He really did all he could. After a year, he proposed,” Juhi had recalled.
