Om Puri’s first wife spoke he cheated on her when she was pregnant, sent her Rs 25,000 through secretary after losing baby: ‘Forget to console me…’

Actor Om Puri’s first wife recalled their bitter separation, which happened after he cheated on her. She also spoke about his cold behaviour after she lost her inventory.
Late actor Om Puri’s first wife Seema Kapoor opened up about their turbulent marriage, which broke down after he had an affair with another woman. Seema said that she was pregnant at the time, and after a point, the betrayal became unbearable for her.
She left, but her baby did not survive. In an interview, she said that Om Puri sent her Rs 25,000 as compensation through his secretary, but she refused to take the amount. She also recalled how things got unpleasant when he confessed to being in love with another woman, a journalist named Nandita, with whom he married and had a son.
In an interview with Siddharth Kannan, Seema recalled that Om met Nandita while working on the Hollywood film City of Joy. “Everything was going well after our marriage, but that film turned my life upside down… My good friend Renu Saluja, Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s first wife, knew about the affair. But she and Sudhir Mishra and everyone else treated it as a phase thing.
They thought he would become normal after the film. I came to know about the affair much later, when I was in Delhi. He called me and told me he was dating someone else, and my friends said he just wanted attention.”
But Seema knew from the tone of his voice that he was not joking. He told her that he wanted a divorce, but she could not believe her ears. “I returned to Mumbai, and everything seemed normal.
Soon after that he went out of town for a shoot, and when I was sifting through his belongings, I found love letters. I was devastated. I never wanted to divorce him, even if he had an affair. I wanted to make everything right, because I was pregnant. He knew I was pregnant, but it was a cause of insecurity for Nandita. She would call him in front of me,” she said.
Seema said she was a non-confrontational person, but now she understands that Om was just looking for an excuse to break up with her. He would fight because it gave him the excuse he needed, plus he would feel superior by confessing his infidelity.
“But things got too much; Puri sahab would drink too much, and Nandita would create a ruckus. One night, I decided to leave the house. I was three months pregnant.” Her brother, actor Annu Kapoor, was deeply upset by what had happened, and vowed to challenge Om Puri in court. Seema received Rs 6 lakh as alimony from him, but when she did not have a child, he turned down Rs 25,000.
She said, “Forget consoling me. He sent Rs 25,000 through his secretary. I turned it down and his secretary told me, ‘It is ego that is ruining you’. But what he thought was ego was just self-respect.” Seema said she and Om Puri reconnected during his final years, when out of the blue he called her and apologised for his actions.