Filmmaker Boney Kapoor has finally opened up about the death of his wife, actress Sridevi, five years ago.
The 54-year-old drowned in a bathtub in her hotel room in Dubai on Feb 24, 2018. She was in Dubai with her family to attend a wedding.
Boney told The New Indian: “It was not a natural death, it was an accidental death. I had decided not to speak about it because I spoke about it for almost 24 or 48 hours when I was being investigated and interrogated.
“The officers said we had to do it because there was a lot of pressure from Indian media. I went through all the tests, including the lie detector. They discovered there was no foul play, so the report stated it was accidental.”
Sridevi’s fans could not accept the fact that she drowned in a bathtub and there were speculations, including one alleging that Boney “pushed” his wife to her death to claim Rs240 crore ($40 million) of insurance in her name.
Boney told The New Indian that Sridevi often followed very strict, salt-free diets that led to blackouts.
“She used to starve, she wanted to look good. She wanted to make sure she’s in good shape, so that she looked good on screen,” he said.
“From the time she was married to me, she had blackouts on a couple of occasions and the doctor kept on saying she had low blood pressure.”
The filmmaker added that Telugu star Nagarjuna spoke of a similar incident when Sridevi fainted in the bathroom during a shoot.
Boney said: “It was unfortunate. When she died, Nagarjuna came to offer his condolences and he told me that during one of her movies, she was again on a crash diet and that’s how she fell in the bathroom and broke her teeth.”
Boney recalled “those three, four days in Dubai after Sridevi’s death, I was all alone in distress, tension and anxiety”.
He explained that after they got married, he found out about her strict diets and would urge his doctor to advise her to at least consume some salt. Even at dinner events and functions, she would ask for salt-free dishes. “Unfortunately, she didn’t take this seriously.”
The actress is survived by Boney and their daughters Janhvi and Khushi.
Indo-Asian News Service
