Salman Khan spent hours on call with a heart transplant fan before her surgery

Dubai: Salman Khan's public image tends to oscillate between blockbuster star and tabloid headline, but a story shared quietly on a podcast this week is a reminder of a side of him that rarely makes the news.

Reena Raju, a woman from Karnataka who has survived not one but two heart transplants and now runs her own post-transplant support organisation, has spoken about how Salman supported her through some of the most frightening moments of her life, without any cameras or publicity involved.

The phone call on the night of surgery

Reena shared her story on the Voice of Bengaluru podcast with RJ Sowjanya, and the details are unexpectedly moving. Before her first heart transplant, she reached out to Salman on his personal number, fully aware that he must receive an overwhelming number of messages from people all over the world. He replied.

When she told him she was about to undergo a heart transplant, he was in the middle of a shoot in Australia. That night, the night of her surgery, he called her family and spoke to them for nearly two hours.

"He was very kind to my family and encouraged me to go through it," Reena recalled on the On the Voice of Bengaluru podcast with RJ Sowjanya. "I will get emotional speaking about Salman sir. I love him with all my three hearts and my soul."

She did not stay in contact with him for two years after that. When she eventually reached out again to tell him she had started her own foundation, Light a Life, he remembered her immediately.

The night they danced until morning

The two finally met in person in 2018, after Reena's second heart transplant. She visited Salman at his home in Mumbai, expecting a brief ten-minute meeting. What followed was something far more memorable.

"He has kindness written all over him," she said. "We spent the whole night partying at his house, singing and dancing." This was just four months after her second transplant, a period during which she was also managing diabetes and a range of post-transplant complications. She was dancing anyway.

Salman also took her and her family to the set of Race 3, where they spent an entire day. Before they left, he gave her a Being Human white bicycle, remembering that she had mentioned wanting one in a message she had sent him long before, a detail she clearly had not expected him to hold onto.

A friendship that has continued quietly

What makes Reena's account particularly striking is not just the grand gestures but the consistency. She says that even now, years later, whenever she goes through a difficult medical episode, which is an ongoing reality for anyone living with a transplanted heart, she messages Salman. He always writes back, and always with what she describes as "the nicest and kindest" things.

She also made a point of saying that she is far from alone in this. Many people who have been helped through Salman's Being Human foundation, which he established in 2007 to fund healthcare and education for those in need, remain unknown to the public. Their stories never make headlines precisely because that is how Salman seems to prefer it.

"It's rare to find people who genuinely care about you," Reena said simply.

What Salman is working on now

On the professional front, Salman was last seen in AR Murugadoss's 2025 film Sikandar alongside Rashmika Mandanna. He is currently shooting Maatrubhumi, previously known as Battle of Galwan, a war drama in which he plays an Indian Army Colonel. The film is expected to release this year. He is also reportedly set to appear in a cameo in Riteish Deshmukh and Genelia D'Souza's Raja Shivaji.

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Areeba Hashmi is a trainee at Gulf News.