One of India’s most popular celebrity couple, Kareena Kapoor Khan and Saif Ali Khan recently celebrated their 8th wedding anniversary, an event that might have been celebrated with much gusto in Khan’s ancestral home in Haryana, the iconic Pataudi Palace.

In an interview, the Sacred Games actor said that while he certainly did have a privileged upbringing, “there was no inheritance”. He went on to state that even the property that Saif Ali Khan was supposed to have inherited, the Pataudi Palace, was bought back with the money he made from his films.

The Pataudi Palace is spread across 10 acres and has about 150 rooms. After the death of Khan’s father, Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi, Pataudi Palace was leased to Neemrana Hotels, which operated it as a luxury property until 2014.

“People have a certain fixed notion. For that matter, even [with] Pataudi [palace], when my father died, it got rented to Neemrana Hotels. Aman [Nath] and Francis [Wacziarg] used to run [the hotel]. Francis passed away. He’d said that if I wanted (the palace) back, I could let him know. I said: ‘I want it back’. They held a conference, and said, ‘okay, you have to give us lots of money!’ Which I then consequently earned,” Khan told Mid-Day, in an interview.

“So, even the house I’m supposed to have inherited has been earned back through money from films. You can’t live off the past. At least we can’t in our family, because there was nothing. There is history, culture, beautiful photographs; and, of course, some land. It has been a privileged upbringing. But there’s been no inheritance,” he added.

(Header credits: Karisma Kapoor on Instagram)