Sonali Bendre recalls the disbelief she felt upon learning about her cancer diagnosis: 'Goldie Behl refused to give up on me'

Sonali Bendre, who has been open about her battle with cancer, recently reflected on her journey from a shocking diagnosis to becoming cancer-free. The actress was diagnosed with stage four metastatic cancer in 2018 and underwent treatment in New York, emerging cancer-free in 2021. In a conversation with Faye D’Souza, Sonali recalled the disbelief she felt upon learning about her condition.
“It was just disbelief. I said it can’t be happening to me. And then we go to the next stage of testing, and what we realized was that it had spread everywhere. Every time the doctors would come out of every test, they were going from grey to white,” she said.
She shared that the gravity of her condition was evident in the doctors’ faces, even though they tried to avoid revealing it to her directly. She became emotional as she recounted how her husband, filmmaker Goldie Behl, stood by her side and pushed her to seek treatment abroad.

Reflecting on a moment when she felt overwhelmed, Sonali said, “My husband refused to give up on this, and he said, ‘No, we are going.’ I was like, ‘What the hell, my child is young, how do I leave my life and go away.’ But he was very clear about it. He said, ‘I will not live with regrets, and I will not let this happen. Already we have a regret. This should have been looked into earlier. We didn’t do it. I will not have one more regret after this. We will go there, whatever it takes.’”
Within just four days, Sonali was on a flight to New York, where her treatment began.

Sonali expressed gratitude for receiving treatment in New York, which allowed her the anonymity she needed during her most vulnerable moments. “I wouldn’t have been able to do that in this city. I needed that anonymity, being able to be as ill as I could be without somebody judging me. I needed that little bit of time before I was okay with people judging me. That city gave me that anonymity. I’ll always be grateful to that city for that,” she said.
Sonali Bendre and Goldie Behl have been married since November 12, 2002, and share a 19-year-old son, Ranveer Behl.