Samir Soni and Neelam Kothari may be happily married now, but they admit that falling in love after past broken marriages wasn’t a cakewalk. While he was married to fellow model Rajlakshmi Khanvilkar for six months, she had relocated to London post her wedding with businessman Rishi Sethia in 2000, only to return to Mumbai after her divorce.Samir was already a popular television actor, having featured in the 1995 show Samundar and Mahesh Bhatt’s 1995 English show, A Mouthful of Sky. He then landed the role of Uditanshu in Rajkumar Santoshi’s 1998 action film China Gate. He was paired with Mamta Kulkarni, who played Sandhya in the movie. However, his debut film didn’t really come with truckloads of luck.“When my first film released, I went to the civil court in the morning to pick up my divorce papers. The evening was my premiere. I didn’t know if I wanted to cry or enjoy. That was the biggest night of my life,” Samir revealed on Times Now. “In fact, my parents were visiting from Delhi. I didn’t tell them where I was in the morning. Why ruin their mood? So, I went alone and did whatever had to be done. That was terrible,” he added.Samir also recalled the only person he did share the news of his divorce with was his China Gate co-star Naseeruddin Shah right after the premiere, only to be consoled by “It’s okay” from the veteran actor. “I didn’t have the guts to tell my parents. They still don’t know,” confessed Sameer. To make matters worse, even his role in China Gate was considerably chopped off, leading to him turning “emotionally dead” at the time. Samir Soni in China Gate.“I was getting offers from left, right, and centre before the film released. But I was told to not sign them before the release,” said Sameer, arguing that he was advised that he’d be in a better position to bargain once the film releases and becomes a success. “And that’s when the whole Mamata Kulkarni thing happened, and my whole role was chopped off,” he added.After shooting most of the film, Mamta Kulkarni was fired from China Gate by director Rajkumar Santoshi, who claimed that her role didn’t shape up the way he was hoping it to. However, Mamta alleged that she was fired and her role was reduced to a guest appearance only because she refused to return his sexual advances.Neelam was ‘underground’ for a year after divorceEven though Samir’s divorce came at a time when his film career failed to take as great a start, he claims Neelam had a tougher time after divorce. “It was harder her for her than me because she had to leave her country for her marriage. She quit her job and gave everything up, as a woman. As a man, I was still in my zone,” reasoned Samir.Story continues below this ad“After coming back, I was underground for a year. I didn’t meet or speak to anyone. I just couldn’t believe it had happened to me because every girl, when she gets married, has dreams and stars in her eyes, which unfortunately didn’t work out. When I came back, I just found it difficult to face people because I felt I failed,” confessed Neelam. Neelam Kothari and Samir Soni found each other after past failed marriages.Despite her silence, people kept speculating whether what led to the divorce was her fault or her ex-husband’s. “That’s just the way the world,” said Neelam, adding, “I just wanted to shut out the noise, deal with it my way, and heal because I was broken.” A couple of her friends came to her rescue during that crisis, even though she wasn’t close to Maheep Kapoor, Bhavana Pandey, and Seema Sajdeh, her girl gang with whom she stars on Netflix India’s popular reality show The Fabulous Lives of Bollywood Wives.“Among my friends, I had Ekta, who I keep on saying is my younger sister. She’s seen me through my highs, my lows, and life. My friend Shabina was also a pillar. And then I found Samir after 10 years,” recounted Neelam. As we see in an episode of season 2 of The Fabulous Lives of Bollywood Wives in 2022, Neelam and producer Ekta Kapoor have been thick friends for decades.When Neelam met SamirEkta was also instrumental in Neelam meeting Samir for the first time. Though the two had very different friend circles, Ekta served as the common factor, having known Samir through their television days. She took Neelam to watch a play of Samir, when the two met for the first time. But it took them over five years after speaking to each other to finally tied the knot in 2011.Story continues below this ad“I was very, very scared to get into a relationship. I was very sure that if I enter a relationship, it’s got to be for keeps,” said Neelam. “We both had brief marriages before, had been hurt, were scared, and were very clear, ‘No boyfriend-girlfriend. If something happens, it’ll be marriage.’ There’s no time to go around with each other,” echoed Samir. Samir Soni and Neelam Kothari got married in 2011.“There was another problem that at the slightest of misunderstanding or fight, both of us would be like, ‘It’s not going to work out.’ Both would run away and come back only after 10 days,” he recalled. “I don’t know how many times we broke up,” added Neelam. She admitted that a divorce “puts the fear of God in you”. “You don’t want to go through heartache and breakup once again. So, we both wanted to be damn sure,” she said.Samir recalled reading a book which stated that the most traumatic event in a human life after loss of a loved one is divorce. “Because nobody gets into a marriage thinking it won’t work out. When the one thing you’re sure about, if that doesn’t work out, then you start doubting your own judgement,” he said, adding, “We still carry the scars in some way or the other.”Also Read — Neelam Kothari breaks silence on Govinda’s off-screen love: ‘I was too young’Story continues below this adSamir and Neelam adopted a daughter, Ahana Soni, in 2013. They also shared screen space in not only The Fabulous Lives of Bollywood Wives, but also an episode of season 2 of Prime Video India’s show Made in Heaven. The 2019 episode, which starred Neelam and Samir as estranged lovers now married to different people, was directed by Neeraj Ghaywan.