This star was abandoned by father, thrown out of project after giving Rs 100-crore film, tragically died at...

Jiah Khan, born Nafisa Rizvi Khan on February 20, 1988, was an English-American actress and singer who caught everyone's attention when she entered the Indian film industry. Although she was born in New York, she was raised and educated in London.

Early Life:

Jiah Khan's father was an American businessman, and her mother was a Hindi film actress. Her father left the family when she was only two years old. Jiah’s paternal aunts were well-known Pakistani actresses Hina Rizvi, Sangeeta (Parveen Rizvi), and Kaveeta (Nasreen Rizvi).

After growing up in London, Jiah Khan moved to Mumbai to follow her dreams. Inspired by watching Urmila Matondkar’s film Rangeela at the age of 6, she decided she wanted to become an actress.

Jiah made her Bollywood debut with Ram Gopal Verma's film Nishabd, but it was her second film, Ghajini, that brought her fame. The movie, starring Aamir Khan and Asin, became the highest-grossing Bollywood film of 2008. In 2010, she appeared in the film Housefull.

When Jiah was replaced in a film

According to reports, in 2010, Jiah Khan was asked to leave the film Chance Pe Dance, which starred Shahid Kapoor, even though half of the shooting had already been completed. She was eventually replaced by Genelia D'Souza. The director, Ken Ghosh, stated that Jiah became too friendly with Shahid Kapoor and wasn't performing her role well.

However, after the film's release, Jiah claimed she was asked to leave because the director had inappropriate intentions and a poor attitude towards her.

After the incident, Jiah Khan immediately went back to London. Later, she opened up about the experience in a phone conversation from there. She shared, "I suffered silently when this happened (when Ken asked her to leave the sets). I was asking myself ‘why?’ But I had no option when he (Ken) told me to leave even as the film was nearing completion. But I never questioned his decision and quietly walked away hoping that it will be the end of it,” she said.

But it was not. Stories started appearing about how every scene of Jiah’s was getting deleted frame by frame. “A film is like a marriage. When it breaks off it creates a lot of bad blood. But I decided not to go around saying things against anybody. It was not that I didn’t know what was being said about me. Still, I decided not to stoop so low,” Jiah said.

Tragic death

On June 10, 2013, she was found hanging from a ceiling fan in the bedroom of her family residence in Juhu, Mumbai. She killed herself and left a letter in which she wrote about her personal life and boyfriend Sooraj Pancholi. Her mother claimed that she was murdered by Sooraj Pancholi. However, due to lack of evidence, he was acquitted in April 2023.