At her first London meet-and-greet, held for SKT Welfare, the actress spoke of falling for a now-married film co-star — then drew a line on his identity that social media has spent three days trying to cross.
LAHORE: Saba Qamar, one of Pakistan’s most acclaimed actresses, has revealed that she once fell in love with a co-star — not from her television dramas, but from a film she made a few years ago. She said she would not name him because he is now married and she did not want to cause trouble in his home.
The admission came during a question-and-answer session with fans at a charity event in the United Kingdom. A clip went viral within hours, and comment sections filled with guesses about the actor’s identity. The actress herself has said nothing further.
Saba Qamar is known for guarding her private life as closely as she commits to her roles, which is partly why the remark travelled so fast. Speaking to fans at the London event, her first meet-and-greet there, organised by Creative Teams in aid of SKT Welfare, she said she had fallen in love with a fellow actor. He was not one of her drama co-stars, she clarified, but someone she worked with on a film a few years back. Because he is now married, she said, she would not reveal his name, adding lightly that his wife might otherwise give him a hard time.
She then turned the story on herself. When she told her niece, she recalled, the girl advised her to forget him and move on, reasoning that the two had simply been thrown together during a shoot. By several accounts the niece is 14, and she reminded her aunt of who she was. Saba said she had agreed, and that she had been fine afterwards.
The actress also seemed to recognise, mid-anecdote, how little cover her hint provided. She noted that she has made only a handful of films and, laughing, asked the audience to skip that part. She also wondered aloud whether she had fallen for the character rather than the man — a distinction any actor who has spent weeks inside a role will understand.
Within hours, the clip was circulating on X, Instagram and TikTok, and users were compiling lists of her film co-stars. One post on X, widely shared, simply begged her to reveal the name and promised to keep the secret. Entertainment sites across Pakistan and India picked up the story, most noting that she had deliberately left the identity unstated.
The actress was explicit about why she stayed silent; a married man and his family are involved, and none of them chose to be part of the story. Guessing in public turns her discretion into someone else’s problem.
The candour sits comfortably alongside a career defined by risk-taking. Saba Qamar has anchored some of the most-discussed Pakistani dramas of the past decade, including Baaghi, Cheekh and Digest Writer, and her film work has earned equal recognition, such as her performance in Kamli won her the Lux Style Award for Best Film Actress in 2023. She is reportedly filming a new drama for Geo in which she plays a woman with bipolar disorder drawn into the drug trade.
On the evidence of the reaction, fans will keep asking. She is under no obligation to answer.
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