SRK’s net worth of Rs 7,300 crore proves that middle-class dreams do come true

“Jo bhi chahoon, woh main paoon, zindagi mein jeet jaoon“(May I get what I want and win in life). That’s how one of the songs with Shah Rukh Khan begins. The song is ‘Chand Taare Todh Laoon’ from ‘Yes Boss’. Incidentally, the same song also features Mannat, SRK’s hometown – but it wasn’t his then. Today, Shah Rukh Khan has manifested the song and is virtually ruling the world (‘sad duniya par main chhau‘). The actor made it to the Hurun India Rich List with a net worth of, wait for it, Rs 7,300 crore.

For a middle class person it would also be a challenge to imagine that amount. Even imagining a crore can be difficult for many, to bring it to Rs 1000 crore is huge and here we are talking about Rs 7,300 crore. Unimaginable, isn’t it? But here is a man from a humble background who achieved this. Yes, Shah Rukh Khan was also a middle class man, who admitted that he was pushed to the road for not paying the rent, and his car was impounded by the bank because he could not pay the loan. In fact, he even admitted that he and his family could not afford the medicines that his father needed.

In a 2013 interview with Filmfare, Khan admitted, “I’ve seen the worst. My father died and we couldn’t afford the expensive injections. My aunt used to send them from London. But if it was 20 injections, we would only get eight. So I’ll never know if he died because we didn’t have the money or because he had to.” He even said he’d seen enough poverty to no longer crave money.

“I come from a place where there was less food. I ate watery dal and survived. I got letters from the school threatening to throw me out because my fees were not paid. Mom and Dad collected the change that was lying under the mattresses and paid for my education,” Khan had said in the same interview, adding, “Because I have seen so much poverty, I don’t crave money. I can spend it all in one go. My wife scolds me for this. I spend crores in a jiffy – on films, on charity. You ask for money and I give it to you.”

While he doesn’t mind spending like a ‘Badshah’, as he is often called, he does want his children to never experience the bad days he experienced. “The only fear is that my children will never be homeless. If you have a home and an education, the world is at your feet. If you don’t have a job and money, at least you have a roof to sleep under and cry. I have slept on the streets. There have been times when I was evicted from my house because we couldn’t pay the rent. I have been on the streets twice,” he confessed.

Not only was he expelled from school and home for not being able to pay the EMI, but his second car (and his first Jeep) was also seized by the bank for not being able to pay the loan. Shah Rukh Khan was already an actor then and was working in ‘Raju Ban Gaya Gentleman’. Juhi Chawla said in an interview that his black Gypsy was taken by the bank, and he was heartbroken. It was then that Chawla, who now co-owns KKR with the superstar, lent him one of her cars.

As fate would have it, he got to drive the car again during the shoot of ‘Trimurti’. In 2015, he told ZoomTV, “Years later, when I was in a hill station shooting for ‘Trimurti’, I was being driven around in a car and suddenly I realised that the car looked familiar. Apparently, they had sold the cars in lots and the car I was in was my car (which was taken away from me!). I used to drive the car with Jackie (Shroff).” Now, Khan owns some of the best and most expensive cars.

For Khan, poverty is also failure. In an interview with Hindustan Times that same year, he said: “I really fear failure. I come from a lower-middle-class family and have seen a lot of failure. Poverty brings fear, stress and sometimes depression. I saw my parents struggle with it. After I lost my father at a young age, I equated poverty with failure. I just didn’t want to be poor.”

In fact, it was his fear of poverty that led him to sign several films that others had rejected. “I signed films more out of fear of poverty than out of creative desire. Most of my initial films were rejections by other actors. Deewana (1992) was rejected by an actor named Armaan Kohli, Baazigar (1993) by Salman Khan and Darr (1993) by Aamir Khan. I did all of them to avoid unemployment,” he admitted. Fortunately, these were the films that made him big and he became the star, which eventually paved the way for his superstardom.

In another interview, Shah Rukh Khan advised everyone not to romanticize poverty. “Don’t philosophize until you are rich. I was poor once and I can tell you there is nothing romantic about it,” he told GQ India in an interview for the January 2017 issue. “When young people, friends, say they want to be great creative novelists, I advise them to become copywriters first, earn a little money. Don’t be a struggling artist; be a happy one,” he added.

Probably it was his fear of failure that prompted him to return with a bang in 2023 with three massive hits – ‘Jawan’, ‘Pathaan’ and ‘Dunki’. He was written off after ‘Zero’ but also topped the Forbes Top 10 Highest Paid Actors in India 2024 list. He charges between Rs 150-250 crore per film.

‘Main ban jaoon sabse bada‘ was another line from the same song we mentioned at the beginning. Indeed, he is ‘Badshaho ka Badshah‘ (King of Kings) with ‘saari prayer‘ And ‘saari-takkat‘, even after more than three decades in the industry, and probably the last superstar in India.