Drunk Raj Kapoor Would Collapse, Burn Himself With Cigarettes After Nargis Married Sunil Dutt: 'Night After...'

Raj Kapoor and Nargis were the talk of the town, with whispers of their long-running affair dominating Bollywood gossip. The “First Showman of Bollywood” was reportedly heartbroken when Nargis married Sunil Dutt in 1958, despite her years of loyalty and even seeking advice from politician Morarji Desai about possibly marrying Kapoor. According to Madhu Jain’s book, The Kapoors: The First Family of Indian Cinema, Raj Kapoor saw her marriage as the ultimate betrayal.

In the book, Raj Kapoor shared with journalist Suresh Kohli that while people believed he let Nargis down, he felt she had betrayed him. He was deeply hurt when he found out she had married Sunil Dutt, even breaking down in front of friends. ”

As quoted in the book, “He broke down and cried in front of his friends and colleagues when he found our that she had married Sunil Dutt. Raj Kapoor took it very badly: he would reportedly burn himself with cigarette butts to check if he was not dreaming, wondering how she could have done this to him.”

Raj Kapoor’s drinking hit his family hard. His wife, Krishna Raj Kapoor, once revealed that he would come home drunk, collapse in the bathtub, and cry — she knew those tears were for Nargis, not her. “Night after night he’d come home drunk… He’d come and collapse almost unconscious in the bathtub weeping bitterly. Night after night. Do you think I thought he was weeping for me? No. Of course not. I knew he was weeping for her.” A ‘friend’ was quoted as saying, “Nargis was his only true love. He never spoke against her publicly. He blamed her brothers for driving a wedge between them.’ In private, he often babbled on about what he termed ‘a great betrayal’,” she told author Bunny Reuben.

The affair between Raj Kapoor and Nargis started on the set of their 1955 blockbuster Shree 420. What started as electric on-screen chemistry quickly turned into a fiery off-screen romance. The intense connection between Bollywood’s golden couple shocked fans and fuelled a media frenzy, making their love story one of the most talked-about scandals of the era.