The Aamir Khan–Faissal Khan rift explained: Affair allegations, legal claims and family rebuttals

Actor Faissal Khan, brother of superstar Aamir Khan, is currently at odds with his family after making serious allegations against his brother and other family members.

Recently, Faissal cut off all ties with the star, moved out of his home, and made some explosive claims to the media, referring to Aamir Khan’s first marriage with Reena Dutta. During the press conference, he also accused Aamir of having an affair with Jessica Hines.

Jessica Hines is a UK-based journalist and writer. Reports suggest she came to India in the late 1990s while working on a biography of Amitabh Bachchan. Around that time, she reportedly met Aamir Khan during the making of his film Ghulam. In 2005, Stardust magazine reported that Aamir and Jessica were in a relationship and even living together, and that Jessica was pregnant too.

Jessica later moved on, marrying London-based businessman William Talbot. Neither Aamir nor Jessica have publicly addressed these rumours.

The story quietly faded, until 2012, when pictures of Jessica’s son Jaan appeared in British Vogue. Jessica reportedly shared the feature on Twitter, captioning it, “Jaan in Vogue.” There was instant gossip about the resemblances between Jaan and Aamir, but neither addressed it.

Faissal claims that several years ago, Aamir locked him up for over a year in his Mumbai home. The actor had alleged, “Aur Aamir ne mujhe qaid kar diya tha ghar me ek saal. Mobile le liya, main bahar nahi jaa sakta. Bodyguard mere room ke bahar. Dawaiyan de rahe hain (Aamir had locked me inside the house for a year. My phone was taken, I couldn’t go out. There were bodyguards outside my room. I was given medicine).”

Following the resurfacing of these allegations, Aamir and his family issued a statement saying they are “distressed by Faissal's hurtful and misleading portrayal of his mother Zeenat Tahir Husain, his sister Nikhat Hegde, and his brother Aamir.” They emphasised that this isn’t the first time Faissal has misrepresented events and reaffirmed their solidarity as a family.

The full statement: We are distressed by Faissal's hurtful and misleading portrayal of his mother Zeenat Tahir Husain, his sister Nikhat Hegde, and his brother Aamir. As this is not the first time he has misrepresented these events, we feel it necessary to clarify our intentions, and reaffirm our solidarity as a family.

It is important to share that every choice regarding Faissal has been taken collectively as a family, in consultation with multiple medical professionals, and has been based on love, compassion, and a desire to support his emotional and psychological wellbeing. For this reason, we have refrained from publicly discussing the details of a painful and difficult period for our family.

We request the media for empathy, and to refrain from turning a private matter into salacious, inflammatory and hurtful gossip.

Faissal made his film debut in Mela (2000), which also starred Twinkle Khanna and Aamir Khan. The movie underperformed, and Faissal’s career struggled afterward. He later worked with Aamir Khan Productions as a script doctor.

Reflecting on that period, Faissal told Ronak Kotecha in 2021, “I had to bear the brunt. Aamir and I had this personal conversation. I didn’t go into a discussion about why it flopped, he told me what he felt. He told me, ‘You’re not a good actor, you can’t act, so you better start doing something else, you should think what you want to do in life.’ So that was his reasoning.”

Faissal has spoken about his legal disputes with his family in 2008 after a court verdict. He claimed that rumours about his mental health had been spread by Aamir and other family members. “Frankly, I was never ill… What has been said so far was speculative and spread by my elder brother, Aamir Khan, and other family members," he had said.

In a 2020 interview with Bollywood Hungama, Faissal elaborated, “When the family felt that I was depressed and had paranoid schizophrenia, they kept me under house arrest for one year and gave me forceful medication. It is illegal, but I was taking all this quietly because I thought that the family would realise at some point that if I am mad, I will show it in some way. I thought I should be patient till they come to their senses that they are troubling me for no reason.”

Recently, Faissal cut off all ties with Aamir and his family, and also said in a statement, “I, Faissal Khan, have from the date hereof severed all ties, familial as well as in estate, with my family members, the names whereof are more particularly described in the Schedule hereunder written. All persons are required to take note that on and from the date hereof I shall not be known as forming part of the family of my late father Tahir Husain or my mother Zeenat Tahir Husain, and, or any other family member more particularly described in the Schedule hereunder written, and I shall not be entitled to any rights arising out of the estate of either of them or liable for any liability arising out of the estate of either of them.”