Actor Sidharth Shukla‘s sudden, untimely demise has taken the nation by shock. He passed away this morning of a massive heart attack. It is all the more heartbreaking because 40 is certainly no age to die. After winning the reality show ‘Bigg Boss 13’, the actor’s career graph had just begun booming. The super success of ‘Broken But Beautiful 3’ and his recent music videos was taking him to new highs. To hear the news of his death amidst this is tragic beyond words, to say the least.
Here are some of the highlights of his life and career-
1. He was a qualified Interior Designer, and worked at an interior designing firm before pursuing modeling.
2. He lost his father at a young age, and worked as a model to shoulder the responsibilities of his family.
3. He had an inclination for athletics. He even played against Italian football club, AC Milan’s under-19 team, on their Mumbai visit as part of ‘Festa Italiana’.
4. Shukla was runner-up in the Gladrags Manhunt and Megamodel Contest in 2004.
5. In 2005, Sidharth Shukla became the first Asian to win the title of World’s Best Model at Turkey, beating 40 contestants from across the globe.
6. He made his acting debut in 2008 as the lead in Sony’s TV show ‘Babul Ka Aangann Chootey Na’, but became a household name with the serial ‘Balika Vadhu’, for which he won several awards.
7. Shukla made his Bollywood debut in Dharma Productions’ rom-com ‘Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania’, alongside Alia Bhatt and Varun Dhawan, that earned him a Stardust award for ‘Breakthrough Supporting Performance’.
8. He won the reality shows ‘Bigg Boss 13’ and ‘Fear Factor: Khatron Ke Khiladi 7’ and even hosted ‘Savdhaan India’ and ‘India’s Got Talent’.
9. He never married, but was reportedly dating actress Shehnaaz Gill. The two met on the reality show ‘Bigg Boss 13’ and fans went crazy witnessing their fun banter, that even got them the popular hashtag ‘Sidnaaz’.
10. His future project line-up was looking great, with reports that he had bagged 4 new projects doing the rounds. This included a spy thriller for Disney+Hotstar, also starring Monica Dogra and Pankaj Tripathi, as well as another OTT show with TV actress Jennifer Winget. He was also in talks to host a couple of shows.
In fact, the story of ‘Broken But Beautiful 3‘, will also be left incomplete now, because we are sure a sequel would have been planned soon, guessing by the actor’s and the show’s popularity. This loss is indeed a huge one to all those who loved him.