Neena Gupta, who moved to Mumbai from Delhi in the 1980s, recently talked about navigating life in the city. The actress shared that she never rented homes and rather chose to sell and upgrade. During one such transitional phase, she had to move in with her uncle and aunt but soon after was asked to leave in the middle of the night, leaving Neena and her daughter Masaba homeless.
In a conversation on the YouTube channel Housing.com, Neena revealed that she had reserved a three-bedroom apartment in a builder’s project. Her finances were momentarily strained because she had sold her existing home and used the proceeds to purchase a new house. During this time, she had to move in with her aunt and uncle.
The actress said, “I shifted to my aunt’s house where I had stayed before. I thought I stayed there so much of the time and I just came back to my house to sleep. Since Masaba was little then, my aunt used to help in looking after the baby. But one day, she threw me out in the middle of the night, she kicked me out. I had no money left. There was this one night where I had nowhere to go with a baby.”
However, Neena‘s uncle offered her an empty apartment in Juhu that had been unoccupied for 20 years. Later on, though, she was asked to leave the residence as well.
She said, “Before shifting with them, I had already told both of them that I am now going to be without a house, so are you okay with me moving in? They said yes then. Now, my uncle felt very bad so he shifted me to his mother-in-law’s house in Juhu, which had been shut for 20 years. There were cobwebs in the house, it looked rusty. I went there, and I cleaned that house with a small baby. But soon, I was asked to leave that house as well.”
Neena Gupta explained her circumstances to the builder and asked for a refund as she had nowhere else to go. Thankfully, the builder gave her a complete refund, which enabled Neena to buy a home in Aram Nagar.
Neena Gupta was dating former West Indies cricketer Vivian Richards in the 1980s. She gave birth to her daughter Masaba Gupta in 1989 and raised her as a single mother. In 2008, Neena got married to Vivek Mehra in a private ceremony.