LONDON - Trying to put an end to a very public fight, boxer Amir Khan last week said the feud between his wife Faryal Makhdoom and his family needs to stop immediately. Well, looks like Faryal planned on having the last word. Yesterday, she went live on British TV channel ITV's "This Morning" show to talk about her tiff with Amir's family.
In response to Amir's parents' claims that their only objection to Faryal is her clothing, she said that she dresses exactly like she did at their first meeting.
"When Amir's family had come to my house, I remember the first time I ever met them, I was wearing sleeveless and I was always very modern in my dressing whereas I'm not really a drinker, smoker, party girl. I respect my religion a lot but in my dress sense I was very open about it and I remember the first day Amir's mom and dad had come with him, they knew the way I dress."
She says she initially enjoyed a good rapport with Amir's family.
"My mom was very open. I am the same person today as I was five years ago when I got engaged and no one addressed that you know 'sorry we can't accept you because of the way you dress' or 'sorry you're too Western or too independent we won't accept you.' Everything was fine, we all really got along, we had such great laughs and you know, they were so happy to welcome me into the family. So that's how it worked out in the beginning."
But soon it all started to unravel, she shared. Six months into the engagement, Faryal remembers first noticing all was not well.
"I remember it was a few months before my wedding. I went to Pakistan to do some shopping and I wanted to surprise Amir. He was in Dubai with his family at the time. So my brother and I, I wanted to go to surprise Amir for Valentine's day and he had told me 'it would be so nice to see you, we haven't seen each other for a while' because he used to be training. I thought it was a surprise. It would be cute. Little did I know it would backfire on me. "
Faryal's visit made the family very upset and she wasn't allowed to see her fiance.
"This was the first time ever where, it was so weird that, I guess I wasn't allowed to see him. In the beginning of my engagement, I was allowed to see him. They were very happy for me to come and visit. Very happy to send Amir. But suddenly after like when it got closer to the wedding, I remember Amir's mom and dad saying 'she's ruined our whole family holiday and we're going to take you back the next day.' Amir had to fly out to the UK the next day, he was not allowed to see me. And that's when I knew that you know what, if I'm not getting accepted being Amir's fiance, I'm not sure how easy it would be to be accepted being his wife."
Amir recently broke his silence and said that not only does he not want anything to do with this fight, he also wants it to end immediately.
On being asked why Faryal, despite Amir's statement, chose to come on the show, she replied, "I spoke to Amir about it and Amir has always been very supportive of me. Obviously it's getting too much for him. He has to be neutral, there are his parents on one side and I'm his wife on another side and he's basically in the middle and I did say to Amir that I would like to get my message across and he said that's fine. He said we can put everything behind after this." - Agencies
