114 Facts About Shah Rukh Khan

Shah Rukh Khan has been awarded the Padma Shri by the Government of India, as well as the Order of Arts and Letters and Legion of Honour by the Government of France.

Shah Rukh Khan began his career with appearances in several television series in the late 1980s and made his Bollywood debut in 1992 with the musical romance Deewana.

Shah Rukh Khan was initially recognised for playing villainous roles in the films Baazigar and Darr.

Shah Rukh Khan established himself by starring in a series of top-grossing romantic films, including, Dil To Pagal Hai, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, Mohabbatein, Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham.

Shah Rukh Khan is a frequent television presenter and stage show performer.

In 2022, Shah Rukh Khan was voted one of the 50 greatest actors of all time in a readers' poll by Empire, and in 2023, Time named him as one of the most influential people in the world.

Mir was a follower of Abdul Ghaffar Shah Rukh Khan, and affiliated with the Indian National Congress.

Shah Rukh Khan was the cousin of the major general in the Indian National Army Shah Nawaz Khan.

However, his paternal cousins in Peshawar later clarified that the family speaks Hindko, a dialect of Punjabi that Shah Rukh Khan can understand and speak even if not fluently, and is originally from Kashmir, from where they settled in Peshawar centuries back, thus contradicting the claim that his grandfather was a Pashtun from Afghanistan.

Shah Rukh Khan was born on 2 November 1965 into a Muslim family in New Delhi.

Shah Rukh Khan spent the first five years of his life in Mangalore, where his maternal grandfather, Iftikhar Ahmed, served as chief engineer of the port in the 1960s.

Shah Rukh Khan has described himself on Twitter as "half Hyderabadi, half Pathan, and some Kashmiri ".

Shah Rukh Khan grew up in the Rajendra Nagar neighbourhood of New Delhi.

Shah Rukh Khan's father had several business ventures including a restaurant, and the family lived a middle-class life in rented apartments.

Shah Rukh Khan attended St Columba's School in central Delhi where he excelled in his studies and in sports such as hockey and football, and received the school's highest award, the Sword of Honour.

Shah Rukh Khan enrolled at Hansraj College to earn his bachelor's degree in economics, but spent much of his time at Delhi's Theatre Action Group, where he studied acting under the mentorship of theatre director Barry John.

Shah Rukh Khan attended the National School of Drama in Delhi during his early career in Bollywood.

Shah Rukh Khan's father died of cancer in 1981, and his mother died in 1991 from complications of diabetes.

Shah Rukh Khan's first starring role was in Lekh Tandon's television series Dil Dariya, which began shooting in 1988, but production delays led to the Raj Kumar Kapoor directed 1989 series Fauji becoming his television debut instead.

Shah Rukh Khan played minor parts in the serials Umeed and Wagle Ki Duniya, and in the English-language television film In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones.

Shah Rukh Khan changed his decision to act in films in April 1991, citing it as a way to escape the grief of his mother's death.

Shah Rukh Khan moved from Delhi to Mumbai to pursue a full-time career in Bollywood and was quickly signed to four films.

In 2003, the Encyclopaedia of Hindi Cinema stated that Shah Rukh Khan "defied the image of the conventional hero in both these films and created his own version of the revisionist hero".

Shah Rukh Khan's stammering and the use of the phrase "I love you, K-k-k-Kiran" were popular with audiences.

Also in 1993, Shah Rukh Khan performed a nude scene with Deepa Sahi in Maya Memsaab, although parts of it were censored by the Central Board of Film Certification.

In 1994, Khan played a love-struck musician in Kundan Shah's comedy-drama film Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa opposite Deepak Tijori and Suchitra Krishnamurthy, which he later professed was his favourite role.

Shah Rukh Khan's performance earned him a Filmfare Critics Award for Best Performance, and in a retrospective review from 2004, Sukanya Verma of Rediff.

Also in 1994, Shah Rukh Khan won the Filmfare Best Villain Award for his role as an obsessive lover in Anjaam, co-starring Madhuri Dixit.

Arnab Ray subsequently credited Shah Rukh Khan for taking "insane risks" and "pushing the envelope" by choosing to play such characters, through which he established his career.

Shah Rukh Khan starred in seven films in 1995, the first of which was Rakesh Roshan's melodramatic thriller Karan Arjun.

Shah Rukh Khan was initially reticent to portray the role of a lover, but this film is credited with establishing him as a "romantic hero".

In 1996, all four of Shah Rukh Khan's releases failed critically and commercially, but the following year, his starring role opposite Aditya Pancholi and Juhi Chawla in Aziz Mirza's romantic comedy Yes Boss earned him accolades that included a Filmfare Best Actor nomination.

Shah Rukh Khan portrayed Rahul, a stage director caught in a love triangle between Madhuri Dixit and Karisma Kapoor.

Shah Rukh Khan performed the lead role in three films and made one special appearance in 1998.

Shah Rukh Khan continued to have frequent professional associations with Yash Chopra, Aditya Chopra, and Karan Johar, who moulded his image and made him into a superstar.

Shah Rukh Khan became a romantic leading man without ever actually kissing any of his co-stars, although he broke this rule in 2012, after strong urging by Yash Chopra.

Shah Rukh Khan became a producer in 1999 in a collaboration with the actress Juhi Chawla and the director Aziz Mirza for a production company called Dreamz Unlimited.

The company's first production, Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani, starring Shah Rukh Khan and Chawla, was a commercial failure.

Shah Rukh Khan thereby made his Tamil debut by playing the role of an archaeologist named Amjad Khan.

Shah Rukh Khan performed free of charge as he wanted to work with Haasan.

In 2001, Dreamz Unlimited attempted a comeback with Shah Rukh Khan portraying the title role in Santosh Sivan's historical epic Asoka, a partly fictionalised account of the life of emperor Ashoka.

In December 2001, Shah Rukh Khan suffered a spinal injury while performing an action sequence for a special appearance in Krishna Vamsi's Shakti: The Power.

Shah Rukh Khan was diagnosed with a prolapsed disc, and attempted multiple alternative therapies.

Shah Rukh Khan resumed shooting in June 2003, but he reduced his workload and the number of film roles he accepted annually.

In 2002, Shah Rukh Khan played the title role as a rebellious alcoholic opposite Aishwarya Rai and Madhuri Dixit in Sanjay Leela Bhansali's period romance Devdas.

Shah Rukh Khan next starred in Kal Ho Naa Ho, a comedy-drama written by Karan Johar and set in New York City, which became the second-highest-grossing film domestically and the top-grossing Bollywood film in external markets that year.

Shah Rukh Khan transformed Dreamz Unlimited into Red Chillies Entertainment, adding his wife Gauri as a producer.

Shah Rukh Khan then played an Indian Air Force pilot who falls in love with a Pakistani woman in Yash Chopra's romance film Veer-Zaara, which was screened at the 55th Berlin Film Festival to critical praise.

In December 2013, The Times of India reported that Shah Rukh Khan found filming the picture such an emotionally overwhelming and life-changing experience that he had still not viewed the film.

Shah Rukh Khan was nominated for the Filmfare Best Actor Award for all three of his 2004 releases and eventually won the award for Swades.

In 2005, Shah Rukh Khan starred in Amol Palekar's fantasy drama, Paheli.

Shah Rukh Khan later collaborated with Karan Johar for the third time in the musical romantic drama Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna, in which he played an unhappily married man who has an extramarital affair with a married woman.

Bhaichand Patel notes that Shah Rukh Khan, who had a background in the sport playing for his university's hockey team, essentially portrayed himself as a "cosmopolitan, liberal, Indian Muslim".

Faring well in both India and abroad, Shah Rukh Khan garnered another Filmfare Award for Best Actor for his performance, which Rajeev Masand of CNN-IBN considers to have been "without any of his typical trappings, without any of his trademark quirks", portraying Kabir Shah Rukh Khan "like a real flesh-and-blood human being".

Shah Rukh Khan collaborated for the third time with Aditya Chopra on the romantic comedy Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi opposite debutante Anushka Sharma.

Shah Rukh Khan played Surinder Sahni, a shy man with low self-esteem, whose love for his young arranged wife causes him to transform himself into Raj, a boisterous alter-ego.

Rachel Saltz of The New York Times believed the dual role to have been "tailor-made" for Shah Rukh Khan, allowing him to display his talents, although Deep Contractor from Epilogue thought Shah Rukh Khan displayed greater strength in the role of Surinder and weakness in the role of monologue-prone Raj.

In December 2008, Shah Rukh Khan suffered a shoulder injury while filming a small role in Mudassar Aziz's Dulha Mil Gaya.

Shah Rukh Khan underwent extensive physiotherapy sessions at the time but the pain left him almost immobile and he had arthroscopic surgery in February 2009.

Shah Rukh Khan covered up the offending word on billboards that had already been installed with the original title.

Jay Wesissberg from Variety noted how Shah Rukh Khan portrayed the Asperger's sufferer with "averted eyes, springy steps, [and] stuttered repetitions of memorized texts", believing it to have been a "standout performance sure to receive the Autism Society's gold seal of approval".

In 2011, Shah Rukh Khan starred alongside Arjun Rampal and Kareena Kapoor in Anubhav Sinha's superhero film Ra.

Shah Rukh Khan's performance earned him positive reviews from critics; Nikhat Kazmi of The Times of India said, "Shah Rukh remains in command and never loses his foothold, neither through the dramatic sequences nor through the action cuts".

CNN-IBN considered the overall performance by Shah Rukh Khan to have been one of his finest to date, but believed that Shah Rukh Khan's first screen kiss of his career with Katrina Kaif, twenty years his junior, was an awkward one.

At the following Zee Cine Awards, Shah Rukh Khan performed a tribute to the late Yash Chopra along with Kaif, Sharma, and several of Chopra's other past heroines.

In 2013, Shah Rukh Khan starred in Rohit Shetty's action comedy Chennai Express for Red Chillies Entertainment, a film which earned mixed critical reviews and extensive criticism for its perceived disparagement of South Indian culture, though the film included a tribute to Tamil cinema star Rajinikanth.

On International Women's Day in 2013, The Times of India reported that Shah Rukh Khan had requested a new convention with the name of his lead female co-stars appearing above his own in the credits.

Shah Rukh Khan claimed that the women in his life, including his co-stars, have been the reason for his success.

Shah Rukh Khan next appeared alongside Kajol, Varun Dhawan and Kriti Sanon in Rohit Shetty's action comedy Dilwale.

Shah Rukh Khan then took on dual parts of a superstar and his doppelganger fan in Maneesh Sharma's action thriller Fan.

Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian considered the film to be "exhausting, bizarre yet watchable" and thought that Shah Rukh Khan was aptly "creepy" as the obsessive admirer.

Later that year, Shah Rukh Khan portrayed the supporting part of a therapist to an aspiring cinematographer in Gauri Shinde's coming-of-age film Dear Zindagi.

Shah Rukh Khan returned to the romantic genre with the role of a tourist guide who falls in love with a traveller in Imtiaz Ali's Jab Harry Met Sejal.

Shah Rukh Khan reunited with Sharma and Katrina Kaif in Aanand L Rai's romantic drama Zero, in which he played Bauua Singh, a dwarf involved in a love triangle.

Shah Rukh Khan took the time off to attempt a career comeback.

In 2023, Shah Rukh Khan reunited with Yash Raj Films in the action thriller Pathaan, set in the YRF Spy Universe, in which he played an exiled field agent assigned to stop a terrorist attack in India.

Critic Sukanya Verma took note of Shah Rukh Khan's "weathered intensity, grizzly charisma and trademark wit", while Kaveree Bamzai termed it a "much-needed makeover" of an ageing Shah Rukh Khan into an action star.

Shah Rukh Khan took on another action film role in the same year in Atlee's Jawan, playing father and son doppelgangers.

Shah Rukh Khan will continue his work in action films when starring with his daughter in Siddharth Anand's King, which will release in 2026.

Shah Rukh Khan co-produced three films from 1999 to 2003 as a founding member of the partnership Dreamz Unlimited.

Shah Rukh Khan was involved in several aspects of the making of Ra.

In 2011, he returned to television, appearing on Imagine TV's Zor Ka Jhatka: Total Wipeout, the Indian version of Wipeout; scenes featuring Shah Rukh Khan were shot at the Yash Raj Studios in Mumbai.

In 2017, Shah Rukh Khan began hosting TED Talks India Nayi Soch, a talk show produced by TED Conferences, LLC which started aired on STAR Plus.

Shah Rukh Khan is a frequent stage performer and has participated in several world tours and concerts.

Shah Rukh Khan performed alongside Rani Mukherji, Arjun Rampal and Ishaa Koppikar in a 2010 concert at the St Joseph High School field in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

In 2008, Shah Rukh Khan set up Temptation Reloaded, a series of concerts that toured several countries, including the Netherlands.

Shah Rukh Khan performed alongside Sunidhi Chauhan and Shriya Saran at the opening ceremony of the IPL 2011 season, where they danced to Tamil songs.

Shah Rukh Khan appeared again in 2013 alongside Katrina Kaif, Deepika Padukone and Pitbull.

Shah Rukh Khan had stated that he acted only after children, including his daughter, were being "manhandled" by the security staff and that the officials were extremely high-handed and aggressive in their behaviour, he had been abused with communal indecent comment.

Later MCA officials had accused him of being drunk in one version of the story, hitting the guard and of completely uncharacteristically abusing a female supporter of Mumbai Indians after the match in another version of the story, which Shah Rukh Khan had maintained it was done to support their action and for cheap publicity.

Wankhede guard later contradicted MCA officials' claim and said Shah Rukh Khan had not hit him.

Shah Rukh Khan later apologised to his fans after his team won the final match.

MCA revoked the ban in 2015 and in 2016, Mumbai Police informed that no 'cognisable offence' was made out against Khan and they had come to the conclusion that Shah Rukh Khan was not drunk and did not use abusive language before minors at the Wankhede Stadium in 2012.

Shah Rukh Khan is the object of a sometimes fanatical following, with a fan base estimated to exceed one billion.

Shah Rukh Khan is one of the wealthiest celebrities in India, topping the Forbes India's "Celebrity 100 list" in 2012,2013 and 2015.

Shah Rukh Khan owns several properties in India and abroad, including a apartment in London, and a villa on the Palm Jumeirah in Dubai.

Shah Rukh Khan frequently appears on listings of the most popular, stylish and influential people in India.

Shah Rukh Khan is often referred to as "Brand SRK" by media organisations because of his many brand endorsement and entrepreneurship ventures.

Shah Rukh Khan is one of the highest paid Bollywood endorsers and one of the most visible celebrities in television advertising, with up to a six per cent share of the television advertisement market.

Shah Rukh Khan has endorsed brands including Pepsi, Nokia, Hyundai, Dish TV, D'decor, LUX and TAG Heuer.

In 2007, Shah Rukh Khan became the third Indian actor to have his wax statue installed at London's Madame Tussauds museum, after Aishwarya Rai and Amitabh Bachchan.

Shah Rukh Khan has been brand ambassador of various governmental campaigns, including Pulse Polio and the National AIDS Control Organisation.

Shah Rukh Khan is a member of the board of directors of the Make-A-Wish Foundation in India, and in 2011 he was appointed by UNOPS as the first global ambassador of the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council.

Shah Rukh Khan has recorded a series of public service announcements championing good health and proper nutrition, and joined India's Health Ministry and UNICEF in a nationwide child immunisation campaign.

In 2014, Shah Rukh Khan became the ambassador for Interpol's campaign "Turn Back Crime".

In 2015, Shah Rukh Khan received a privileged degree from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland.

In 2018, Shah Rukh Khan was honoured by the World Economic Forum with their annual Crystal Award for his leadership in championing children's and women's rights in India.

In October 2019, Shah Rukh Khan featured in a video launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to pay tribute to Mahatma Gandhi on his 150th birth anniversary.

Shah Rukh Khan offered his 4-storey personal office space to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation to be used as a quarantine centre for coronavirus patients.

On 5 May 2025, Shah Rukh Khan attended the Met Gala in Manhattan, becoming the first Bollywood male actor to do so and making his debut appearance.

Shah Rukh Khan's outfit was designed by fashion designer Sabyasachi Mukherjee.

Shah Rukh Khan has received five honorary doctorates; the first from The University of Bedfordshire in 2009, the second from The University of Edinburgh in 2015, the third from Maulana Azad National Urdu University in 2016, and his latest from The University of Law and La Trobe University in 2019.

Shah Rukh Khan married Gauri Chibber, a Punjabi Hindu, in a traditional Hindu wedding ceremony on 25 October 1991, after a six-year courtship.

Shah Rukh Khan's children follow both religions; at his home the Qur'an is situated next to the murti of Hindu deities.