Rani Mukerji, famously known as the ‘Babli’ of Bollywood, has opened up about a personal tragedy she experienced before shooting her latest movie ‘Mrs. Chatterjee vs Norway’.

Mukerji, who is married to Aditya Chopra, shared about her second pregnancy amid the Covid-19 pandemic, and the unfortunate loss of the pregnancy in the fifth month.

The Indian film star, addressing the audience at the 2023 Indian Film Festival of Melbourne, disclosed that she had previously kept this sorrowful chapter of her life private. However, she unveiled that amidst the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic, she experienced the heartbreak of losing her second child halfway through her pregnancy. The actress expressed that revealing her narrative ahead of the movie’s launch would have been considered as a part or tactic used for promotional strategies.

“Maybe this is the first time I am making this revelation because in today’s world every aspect of your life is discussed publicly, and becomes an agenda for talking about your film to get more eyeballs. Obviously, I didn’t speak about this when I was promoting the film because it would have come across as me trying to speak about a personal experience that would propel the film…so, it was around the year when COVID-19 struck. It was 2020. I got pregnant with my second baby at the end of 2020 and I unfortunately lost my baby five months into my pregnancy,” she mentioned.

Rani Mukerji shared that Nikhil Advani, one of the producers of ‘Mrs. Chatterjee vs Norway’, contacted her just 10 days after her loss.

“After I lost my baby, Nikhil (Advani) would have called me probably like 10 days later. He told me about the story and I kind of immediately… not that I had to have the loss of a child to feel the emotion but sometimes there is a film in the right time of what you are going through personally to be able for you to connect with it instantly. When I heard the story, I was in disbelief. I never thought in a country like Norway an Indian family would have had to go through,” she said.

Rani Mukerji expressed her deep anger as an Indian, witnessing such a situation unfold for a fellow Indian mother. Her movie, ‘Mrs. Chatterjee vs Norway’, draws inspiration from the emotionally distressing real-life account of Anurup and Sagarika Bhattacharya, an Indian couple whose children were removed by Norwegian child welfare authorities due to concerns about their upbringing.

Rani Mukerji’s initial child, Adira, arrived prematurely by two months. She tied the knot with producer-director Aditya Chopra in 2014, and the following year, they joyfully welcomed their daughter, Adira. The couple maintains a private stance regarding their family life, abstaining from social media presence.

Earlier this year, Rani also conversed with Kareena Kapoor on her show, “What Women Want,” where she mentioned Adira’s premature birth and her subsequent stay in the NICU due to her tiny size.