Amid swirling rumours of a divorce, Abhishek Bachchan has seemingly broken his silence about his wife, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and their daughter, Aaradhya. In an interview with The Hindu, the actor expressed gratitude towards Aishwarya: “I’m very lucky I get to go out and make the movies. But I know that Aishwarya is at home with Aaradhya, and I thank her immensely for that. But I don’t think the children think of it that way. They don’t look upon you in third person. They look upon you in the first — you’re the parent, the father, or the mother.”

Aaradhya recently celebrated her 13th birthday with Aishwarya, but Abhishek’s absence from the pictures shared online did not go unnoticed by fans. Many were quick to point out that he had not even posted a birthday wish for his daughter.

Meanwhile, Abhishek, who is currently earning acclaim for his performance in Shoojit Sircar’s latest, also reflected on his own childhood and shared how he never felt his parents’ absence, despite their demanding careers.

While his father, Amitabh Bachchan, was at the height of his acting career in the 1970s, his mother, Jaya Bachchan, had stepped away from films after his birth to focus on her family: “My mother had stopped acting in films when I was born because she wanted to spend time with the children. But we never felt the void of dad not being around.”