Renu Desai Breaks Silence on Staying Single After Divorce from Pawan Kalyan

Actor Renu Desai shared a whirlwind romance and marriage with actor-politician Pawan Kalyan in the early 2000s, before the two eventually parted ways. While Pawan moved on and tied the knot with Russian actor Anna Lezhneva a few years later, Renu chose to remain single. Speaking on the Nikhil Vijayendra Simha podcast, she opened up about her decision not to remarry—even revealing that she called off an engagement in 2018.

Renu Desai Opens Up About Choosing Not to Remarry After Her Divorce from Pawan Kalyan:

During her candid conversation on the Nikhil Vijayendra Simha podcast, Renu Desai was asked whether she ever longs for a partner to share her life with, especially after all she’s been through. She admitted, “Of course, I feel like having a partner too. But it’s my sense of responsibility towards my kids that stops me from doing it. If I look at it individually, yes, I should have a boyfriend, I should have a marriage, I should have a life. But when I look at it from the kids’ point of view…”

Reflecting further, Renu opened up about her broken engagement in 2018. “I tried again, I got engaged; it was like an arranged thing. But I realised I will not be able to do justice either to the relationship or to the kids. I’m a single parent,” she explained. “It’s different when you marry someone and have kids with them. But when you’ve had kids with someone, it’s a sensitive thing for someone else to enter the equation.”

Renu also shared that she’s currently focused on her daughter, Aadhya. “I’m waiting for Aadhya to grow up; she’s 15 now, maybe when she’s 18 and off to college,” she said, hinting that she might reconsider love and companionship in the future.

A Look Back at Renu Desai and Pawan Kalyan’s Journey

For those unfamiliar, Renu Desai and Pawan Kalyan were one of the most talked-about on-screen and off-screen pairs in the early 2000s. They starred together in the hit film Badri and later in Johnny (2003), which Pawan also directed. The couple welcomed their first child, Akira Nandan, in 2004, and tied the knot in 2009. Their daughter, Aadhya, was born in 2010. However, their marriage was short-lived—they filed for divorce in 2011, and it was finalized the following year.

Pawan later married Russian actor Anna Lezhneva in 2013, and the couple has two children—Mark Shankar Pawanovich and Polena Anjana Pawanova. Before Renu, he was married to Nandini in 1997; they separated in 1999, but their divorce wasn’t finalized until 2008. Renu, meanwhile, got engaged in 2018 but chose to keep her fiancé’s identity private, explaining that he wasn’t a public figure. The engagement was called off not long after.

After a long hiatus from the screen post-Johnny, Renu made her comeback with the 2021 television show Radhamma Kuthuru and appeared in the 2023 film Tiger Nageswara Rao. She has also signed on to new projects, details of which are yet to be revealed. In 2014, she took a creative leap behind the camera, directing and producing the Marathi film Ishq Wala Love.