Renu Desai (Pawan Kalyan’s

Some Lesser Known Facts About Renu Desai

• Renu Desai is an Indian actress, costume designer, filmmaker, producer, and former model, who is the second wife of the well-known South Indian actor and politician Pawan Kalyan.

• Renu was born into a middle-class Marathi family in Pune, Maharashtra. ^[1]The Times of India

  

• She had a difficult childhood because she faced discrimination at home; as her parents wanted to have a male child but she was born to them.

• Ever since she was a kid, she was an avid reader.

• She was a non-vegetarian until the age of 7 as she saw the slaughter of a baby goat on a road and that moved her so much that she turned vegetarian since then.

• She started her career as a model at the age of 15, and was paid a whopping amount of ₹1 lakh for an advertisement.

  

• In 1998, she was seen in Shankar Mahadevan‘s song “Breathless” in which she played the role of a mermaid.

• She was 19 years old when she did her debut movie ‘Badri’ (2000) alongside Pawan Kalyan. During the making of the film, Renu and Pawan fell in love and tied the knot the same year. Initially, her parents were against their marriage, but after a year, they accepted them.

• In 2001, Renu began living together with Pawan Kalyan, her co-actor from the film ‘Badri.’ At that time, Pawan was already married to Nandini. Renu and Pawan had a son named Akira Nandan in 2004, before getting married in 2009.

• In 2003, she appeared as Geetanjali opposite Pawan Kalyan in the Telugu martial arts film ‘Johnny.’

• She has designed costumes for several Telugu films such as ‘Johnny’ (2003), ‘Gudumba Shankar’ (2004), and ‘Balu’ (2005).

• In 2011, the couple initiated divorce proceedings and officially ended their marriage in 2012 after finalizing the divorce. In an interview, while discussing her divorce from Pawan Kalyan, she disclosed that it was Pawan who initiated the divorce process, even though she initially protested it. She said,
  

  I get hate messages from many female fans of Pawan garu. I want to ask them only one question. How would you feel if Pawan was your husband and after 11 years of marriage, he becomes a father to another daughter without telling you? During our divorce, I requested Kalyan garu to issue a public statement to clarify it, but he didn’t oblige my request.” ^[2]India Today

• After separating from Pawan Kalyan, she has been living in Pune with her children.

• If she wasn’t a filmmaker, she would have been a professor or a doctor.

• In February 2023, she shared that she has been facing heart and health problems for a few years. ^[3]The Times of India

• She is an avid dog lover and has a pet dog named ‘Freddie.’