After leaving India in suspense for more than a month, Shah Rukh Khan released an official media statement yesterday regarding the surrogate birth of his son, whose name is AbRam, and clearing up the reports that he and his wife Gauri had conducted pre-birth gender testing.
“Amidst all the noise that has been going around, the sweetest is the one made by our newborn baby, AbRam,” he said in a statement. “He was born prematurely by several months, but has finally come home.”
He added some words to clear up the reason for the longstanding silence on the birth: “Gauri and our whole family have been dealing with his health issues for a long time now. As a family, our silence on this subject has been because of the personal nature of emotional strife that we have been going through due to his health.”
Weighing only 1.5 kg at birth, AbRam was transferred to different hospitals, eventually ending at Breach Candy Hospital, where he recovered from critical condition after being placed in an incubator for three weeks in the neo-natal care unit.
The actor also broke his silence on the allegations of gender testing, which have been heavily covered by both Indian and international media outlets in recent weeks.
“Just to put the record straight there was no sex determination for our child. The baby was born much before the speculations of ‘sex determination’ and other ‘issues’ pertaining to the same were being raised in the media by some organizations,” he said. “Suffice to say his coming home puts to rest completely false and at times insensitive claims of sex determination and alleged illegalities.”
The allegation that Khan and Gauri had illegally requested a gender test on their unborn baby was raised by Maharashtra health officials and resulted in a probe that brought unwanted attention to the doctors and hospitals involved. Khan apologized to all of these medical professionals and thanked Dr. Jatin Shah and his medical staff for helping to nurture AbRam.
He added, “We would appeal to all, to allow us to cherish this private moment as a family. It seems unfortunate that I have to explain/clarify so many aspects for our new-born baby.”
Khan thanked Bollywood for their support. “I just want to thank everyone and the whole film industry, who embraced me with open arms. I have been very fortunate,” he said.
The Bollywood megastar, who sits atop the Forbes India Celebrity 100 list with annual earnings of $37.7 million, co-hosted India’s film awards on Sunday. He starred most recently in the forthcoming film Chennai Express.