How Pooja Bhatt hated and then accepted Mahesh Bhatt's second wife Soni Razdan

Here's how Pooja Bhatt had reacted on learning about father Mahesh Bhatt's affair with Soni Razdan, while he was married to her mother Kiran Bhatt.

Pooja Bhatt is celebrating her 49th birthday on Wednesday. The actor made her acting comeback last year with her filmmaker father Mahesh Bhatt's directorial Sadak 2, which also featured her step sister Alia Bhatt as the female lead. While Pooja and Mahesh came together for this project, things weren't always well between the father-daughter duo. There was a time when Mahesh's second wife, actor Soni Razdan was Pooja's biggest enemy.

Mahesh Bhatt and Pooja Bhatt during the making of Sadak 2.

Mahesh had told Pooja, his daughter from first marriage with Kiran Bhatt, about his extra-martial affair with Soni and had given her space to express her rage.

Talking about the day she learnt of Mahesh's relationship with Soni, Pooja had told Stardust in an interview, "He never hid anything from me. Once I was fast asleep and at around one-thirty in the morning, he woke me up from my deep slumber and told me, ‘Pooja I'm seeing another woman. I'm having an affair with her and I want you to know first'. This was even before my mom knew of it. So that shows how open and honest he is with me."

Sharing how Pooja had reacted to the incident, Mahesh had said during his appearance on Rendezvous with Simi Garewal, “I went and told her that this is what was going on between your father and this girl. She just looked at me and she shook her head. I don’t know what it meant.”

However, he let Pooja and her family come to terms with the affair in their own way. “There was resentment early on. She was this evil seductress who took their papa away. I let them express their rage, their anger,” he said.

Pooja had said in the same interview to Stardust that she did resent Mahesh for leaving her mother and "used to hate Soni for snatching away" their father. She had said, "There used to be times when I used to flare up at the very mention of her name."

Pooja had also made it clear that she doesn't hate him as he didn't desert them after falling for Soni. "It's just that my parents parted ways because they thought they couldn't live together. They are still the best of friends. My father still comes over to our house and supports us financially too," she had said.

Soni and Pooja now share a much healthier relationship. “Time healed my heartaches as well. We began by saying hi, hello and then onto making small talk. It took off from there and now we are good friends. Now they get along fine," Pooja said in an interview.