Farah Khan has been open about her family's financial struggles. The filmmaker shared that her father's film failure at the box office pushed him into alcoholism. To support her family, her mother started renting their home to gamblers for some extra money.
"We had a whole floor and then we started selling flats. Finally, we came to a one hall and one bedroom, after coming from five bedrooms and a huge hall, which he couldn't sell because they were under my mom's name. So that hall, in the afternoon, that was given to the people to come and play cards,” Farah said in a conversation with her best friend, Sania Mirza, on her podcast Serving it up with Sania.
The filmmaker added that those people used to give them Rs 5 each for the family's basic survival. “Those Rs 30-35 were used to buy milk for the next day, little bhaaji and my dad's quarter or half bottle. If they didn't come to play for whatever reason, there was no milk for the next day. If two extra people came, we used to get excited that now we will get mutton today," she said.
Farah Khan admitted that the poverty she experienced made her insecure about money. She said, “It was literally hand-to-mouth. It's a very depressing place to come back from. To see my dad like that, I can smell alcohol so well whenever I travel, it triggers a childhood memory for me. I used to stay in college till 6:30-7 so that I didn't have to go home. Till now, I am insecure about money. I understood why my dad took to alcohol.”
Workwise, Farah Khan recently appeared as the host and judge of the cooking reality show, Celebrity MasterChef. The filmmaker also runs a YouTube channel with her cook, Dilip.