Late Rishi Kapoor Resented Amitabh Bachchan For A Long Time; He Expressed Disbelief On His Death Saying 'I Am Destroyed'

Rishi Kapoor is no more amongst us and now the entire film industry is mourning his loss. People are showering tributes relentlessly! He was one of those few actors in Bollywood who has admirers from all generations. The Raj Kapoor scion was suffering from leukemia. The saddest part of it all is, today on the 30 April, he breathed his last and just exactly a year ago on the 30 April, he confirmed that he had been cured of cancer!

Yes, you read it right. Well, as they say, no one can fight providence. The actor lost his battle to the deadly disease and left for his heavenly abode.

Rishi Kapoor had been directed by the topmost directors of his generation, he acted with topmost actors and actresses of his times. He starred with Amitabh Bachchan in a lot many films as well. But did you know, he resented Amitabh Bachchan deeply? Yes, that’s true.

Well, the actor acknowledged this in his biography Khullam Khulla. Now, Shweta Bachchan is married to Rishi Kapoor’s nephew Nikhil Kapoor and they are family but there used to be a time when Rishi hated Amitabh in spite of working with him.

Rishi Kapoor accepts, Bachchan is most punctilious in maintaining the relationship between the two families. The duo goes back a long way and has known each other as colleagues for decades before they were related.

Kapoor said, there was animosity between the two when it came to their careers because then, the reign of the Angry Young Man was at its zenith.

Kapoor admits his position was perhaps made more difficult by the fact that he was a quintessential romantic hero in an age that exalted the angry avenger. Kapoor in his book Khullam Khulla states, it was not his cup of tea to fight around with villains. However, he eventually accepted that Bachchan was the number one in the industry.

What he didn’t like at all about Mr. Bachchan was the latter’s failure or inability to acknowledge the role played by his co-stars in making his films a success/memorable. Rishi Kapoor and his uncle Shashi Kapoor amongst several other actors worked with Mr. Bachchan. But Kapoor contends that while Bachchan made it a point to thank everyone — from the scriptwriters Salim-Javed to the other members of the crew for his films — he didn't have anything to say about his co-actors and it was hurtful to those peers who had willingly given up the better share of screen space to the superstar.

“To go back to Amitabh, I must confess here is still a lingering issue I have with Amitabh Bachchan. A big disadvantage of working in an all-star movie in those days was that everybody only wanted to make action films, which automatically meant that the star who could carry off the action with the most flair would get the meatiest part. That’s how, with the exception of Kabhi Kabhie, which was a romantic film, none of the multi-starrers I featured in had an author-backed role for me. And it wasn’t just me. Shashi Kapoor, Shatrughan Sinha, Dharmendra, Vinod Khanna faced it too."

The actor went on to admit point-blank, "Although we may have been smaller stars, we were not lesser actors. But this is something that Amitabh has never ever admitted to, in any interview or book. He has never given due credit to the actors who have worked with him."

Today, as he died the relations between them, were the best they could be. There was admiration, respect and even love for each other as a devastated Amitabh Bachchan was the first to react to share the news of his passing and simply said that he felt 'destroyed'. 

His tweet read - ‘He’s GONE ..! Rishi Kapoor .. gone .. just passed away .. I am destroyed!” 

The two co-stars had last worked together in 2018 film 102 Not Out where they played father and son.