Twinkle Khanna on marriage, surnames and the little things that shape a relationship

Twinkle Khanna has always had a life that people love talking about. She grew up as the daughter of two iconic actors, Rajesh Khanna and Dimple Kapadia, stepped briefly into Bollywood with her debut film Barsaat in 1995, and later walked away from the industry after marrying Akshay Kumar. Today she is known more as an author and columnist than an actress, and she has a voice that is witty, grounded and very much her own.

That voice recently stirred a conversation after she appeared on the talk show Two Much with Kajol and Twinkle. A simple question about her name turned into a bigger discussion about marriage, individuality and how women navigate the expectations attached to both.

Why Twinkle never took Akshay Kumar's surname

In a BBC interview, Twinkle opened up about why she chose to stay a Khanna after marriage. For her, it was not a rebellious act or a well-planned feminist statement. It was simply something that never crossed her mind. Her sister kept her surname too, and the topic only ever came up during family gatherings when a slightly dramatic aunt would question why the girls had not become someone else on paper.

Twinkle said she would laugh it off and joke that if she had to change anything, she would start with her first name because living life as "Twinkle" is its own adventure.

She never felt the need to let go of 'Khanna'

Twinkle explained that she has always loved her surname. It is part of her identity, and because of the way she grew up, she never thought marriage required her to change it. She also acknowledged that many women in India do not have the same freedom. For them, taking the husband’s surname is seen as tradition, expectation or even pressure.

She grew up sheltered from these ideas. Until her thirties, she said she genuinely did not realise what patriarchy was because her world at home felt equal. Women in her family were not secondary or silenced. They were strong and often louder than the men, and that shaped her understanding of relationships and power.

Learning about inequality only after joining films

It was only when she entered the film industry that Twinkle saw gender bias up close. She shared that male actors could stroll onto a set hours late without anyone raising an eyebrow. If she showed up even fifteen minutes late, she would get a lecture or risk losing work. Men got the bigger rooms, the gentler schedules and the more respectful treatment. She assumed it was because they were more established or more famous at the time, but it took her years to see the pattern for what it really was.

Those experiences taught her that the world outside her home operated very differently. In her words, she kept brushing off the unfairness because she was too young to recognise it was rooted in gender and nothing else.


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