Raveena Tandon says she’s ‘always been friends with’ ex-fiance Akshay Kumar, his ex-girlfriend Shilpa Shetty: ‘He has bashed up people for me’ | Bollywood News
4 min readMumbaiFeb 17, 2026 09:52 AM IST
Raveena Tandon has just completed shooting for Ahmed Khan’s adventure comedy threequel Welcome to the Jungle, which has one of the biggest star casts of any film in recent memory. One of her many co-stars is Akshay Kumar, whom she’s enjoyed a long and memorable onscreen partnership with. They dated in the 1990s and were even engaged for a brief period, before their much-talked-about split.
However, Raveena maintains today that she’s still on good terms with not only Akshay, but also Shilpa Shetty. Akshay and Shilpa dated soon after his break-up with Raveena. “We still laugh about a lot of things,” Raveena shared and added, “We’ve all become friends. We all were young. We’re all in the same industry. Who’s not gone through link-ups, breakups, and relationships?”
Akshay eventually married Twinkle Khanna, with whom he has two kids – son Aarav and daughter Nitara. Raveena married film distributor Anil Thadani, and they have two kids – daughter and actor Rasha Thadani and son Ranbirvardhan. Meanwhile, Shilpa, married to businessman-turned-actor Raj Kundra, also has two kids – son Viaan and daughter Samisha.
“Today, Akshay and I are friends. Shilpa and I are friends. We’ve all moved on. We’re happy for our families. We’re happy for our children,” Raveena said in her interview with Zoom. “Akshay and I have just done Welcome 3, and we’ve laughed through the film. It’s such a funny film. We’ve thoroughly enjoyed working together again. You’ve to grow up and mature. We’re all happy for each other,” she added.
Raveena also clarified that despite their wedding getting called off, she and Akshay have always been friends. “Akki and me were always very good friends. That day, we were in the Film City, and there was Suniel (Shetty), Sanju (Sanjay Dutt), and Sunny (Deol) shooting for Ahmed’s film. They were all like, ‘Arey tu idhar aa!’ It was like a reunion with all my buddies. I clicked a picture with them also, posted it, and wrote, ‘Me and my boys!’ It’s so much fun to catch up. I’ve always been their best friend, and known all their lafdas. Now that Chichi (Govinda) and I meet, we all meet warmly. That era was something else,” Raveena said.
Welcome to the Jungle is slated to release in cinemas on June 26. It also stars Raveena’s Vinashak (1998) co-star Suniel Shetty. He’s also a part of Baap, an action film that also stars Sunny Deol, Sanjay Dutt, Jackie Shroff, and Mithun Chakraborty. Raveena claimed that each of these co-stars of her was so protective of her that they’ve even beat up people who tried to misbehave with her. “Akki, Sanju, Salman (Khan), and Sunny have bashed up someone for me. The unit used to be together like a family,” said Raveena.
She also claimed that becoming “one of the boys” was her self-defense mechanism to keep at bay any potential advances from her co-stars. “To become boyish and the hero’s buddy was a self-defense tactic. I always reached a backslapping rapport with them so they never saw me as a seductive object of desire. I became the boy first. I’d tease them with another heroine and say, ‘I know what you’re doing,’” said Raveena.
Story continues below this ad
She added that since she was also very forthright, her former co-stars didn’t dare to flirt with her either. “Then I was also very open. So, they were scared I would tell everyone. So, I never had any incidents where there have been any indecent proposals. And then I was also a brown belt in karate,” said Raveena.
