Soundarya Rajinikanth says parents were her ‘rock’ during divorce: ‘Couldn’t have done it without them’

A failed first marriage didn't sour Soundarya Rajinikanth on the idea of marriage itself. The producer, who is promoting her new Netflix series #Love, opened up on Nayandeep Rakshit's YouTube channel about her divorce from Ashwin Ramkumar, finding love again with Vishagan Vanangamudi, and how the household she grew up in has changed over the years.

It was just a wrong relationship"

Soundarya said her parents, Rajinikanth and Latha, carried her through the hardest stretch of her life, and that the experience left her faith in marriage intact.

"For a girl, the first man in her life is her father. And the first friend she has is her mother. And that gets stronger as children grow up. In my difficult times, my parents stood like a rock. I couldn't have done it without them. When my first marriage failed, it did not make me stop believing in the institution of marriage. It was just a wrong relationship. So when I came out of that, I took my time to heal, but I couldn't wait to be back in that institution. Because I believe in it. I'm very happy to be married again," she said.

The double standard divorced women face

She also pointed to an imbalance in how remarriage is viewed. A man who remarries after divorce barely draws attention, she said, while a woman who wants to do the same is judged for it. In her view, women are held to a higher standard because they are seen as 'multitaskers', and the 'opposite gender takes that for granted'.

A household that's still evolving

Soundarya was frank about the home she was raised in, saying her generation largely grew up under male-dominated family structures and hers was no exception. What has shifted, she said, is her parents' own relationship.

"To be honest, we grew up in a generation where it was probably male-dominated at home. That's the truth. But it's changing. It's changing with my parents now, not earlier. As you grow older, the concept of companionship and love also changes," she said.

Her own understanding of love looks very different at 40 than it did at 20, she explained, and the same is true of her parents. Becoming a parent herself taught her not to 'blame' them, since they too were shaped by the times they grew up in. In her own marriage, though, she said she and Vishagan run an equal household, each committed to meeting the other halfway.

Her journey so far

Soundarya married businessman Ashwin in 2010, and their son Ved was born in 2015. The couple separated in 2016 and their divorce was finalised in 2017. She married businessman Vishagan in 2019, and the couple welcomed their son Veer in 2022.