In the early 2000s, it was common to see a specific tall, athletic actor playing the villain in some of Bollywood’s biggest hits. Most people remember him as the arrogant bully who took on Hrithik Roshan in the 2003 blockbuster Koi… Mil Gaya.
However, while audiences saw him as a successful star, his actual life was beginning to fall apart behind the scenes. Even though he has made a successful comeback in the industry, Bollywood actor Rajat Bedi had to survive a nearly 20-year struggle that took him across the world and back.
The breakdown of a Bollywood career
The trouble started even when Bedi was at the peak of his career. In recent interviews with Hindustan Times and Mid-day, he explained that he felt his work was slowly being erased.
Despite playing the memorable bully Raj Saxena in the blockbuster Koi… Mil Gaya, Rajat felt deeply sidelined. In later interviews, he revealed that many of his key scenes with Hrithik Roshan and Preity Zinta were edited out of the final film. Even more discouraging was being completely excluded from the movie’s massive promotions.
This not only shattered his confidence but also spelt trouble for him financially; the beginning of the end of his dominance as an up and coming villain. Bedi shared that producers frequently failed to pay him on time, often asking him to “forget” his fees when a movie didn’t do well. This left him in the strange position of being a famous face who couldn’t actually afford to run his household.
The pressure of trying to maintain his career while his income disappeared led to serious mental health struggles. Bedi admitted that he suffered from nervous breakdowns and grew dependent on sleeping pills to get through the night. In 2007, shortly after his daughter was born, the stress became too much. Seeing no future in an industry that he felt had exploited him, he decided to leave India entirely. He moved his family to Canada, hoping to build a more stable life in the real estate business.
Building and losing a business in Canada
His time in Canada was a rollercoaster of extreme wealth and unexpected betrayal. According to The Indian Express, Bedi initially found huge success as a developer in Vancouver. At one point, his business was worth approximately 200 million Canadian dollars. However, he faced another massive setback in 2012, when partnership disputes led to the collapse of the company.
Despite losing nearly everything, Bedi refused to give up. He spent years in what he describes as “cold storage,” keeping himself fit and waiting for a chance to act again. He worked in the Punjabi and South Indian film industries to stay active, but he remained focused on a proper return to Hindi cinema. He told Digital Commentary that while his return might look like luck, he actually spent 20 years dealing with personal pain and working quietly to get another chance.
The 2026 comeback and life at the farm
The turning point finally came when Aryan Khan reached out to him for his directorial debut, The Ba*ds of Bollywood, which premiered on Netflix in late 2025. Aryan had grown up watching Bedi and felt he was the perfect person to play Jaraj Saxena – a character who is a forgotten actor trying to find his way back into the industry. The role was a massive hit, and Bedi’s popularity on sites like IMDb jumped from 954th place to the top 10 within just a few weeks of the release.
Today, Bedi’s life is very different from the years he spent worrying about bills. In February 2026, he showed Pinkvilla around his 100-acre farmhouse in Khopoli. The estate is a clear sign of how far he has come, featuring a private helipad where he lands his helicopter and a variety of exotic animals, including ostriches brought from Chennai. He has even built a custom treehouse for his children on the property. With reports from Bollywood Hungama suggesting he might soon join the cast of Don 3, it is clear that Bedi has finally found the stability and respect that had remained elusive to him for over two decades.