Neelam Kothari may have moved away from films, but she is still in the limelight with Fabulous Lives of Bollywood Wives and her recently launched YouTube channel. In one of her latest videos, the actress and her actor husband Sameer Soni reminisced about the early days of their romance and revealed an amusing detail about their first date – a date that never led to a second outing for years.During a lunch date featured on her channel, Sameer asked Neelam if she remembers their first date. “Yes, I remember. I can never forget it. You say, ‘I want to see if you remember,'” she replied, laughing.Samir recalls the unforgettable encounter, saying: “I remember well. I don’t remember which café we went to. Right after I got there, I had a panic attack and sweated. We were drinking coffee, so I asked you if we could sit in the car.
She made me very nervous on our first date itself.Neelam went on to reveal that although they eventually got married, the couple had only been on one date before this latest outing. “Samir and I have only been on one date. We have gone on a date once, and this is the second date. Yes, we have gone out with Ahana (daughter) and that is fine, but our romantic dinner date only happened once,” she shared.Samir added with a smile: “She only spoke on the phone for about three months, and then I asked her to at least meet.”
Earlier, Sameer talked about how his relationship with Neelam began. Appearing on Ujjawal Trivedi’s YouTube channel in 2024, he revealed that a tarot card reader once predicted that the woman he would eventually marry would have a name starting with the letter N and would be associated with jewellery.“I met a guy who was a tarot card reader,” he recalls. “I don’t know if she paid him. This guy told me there was going to be a woman in my life whose name started with the letter N and she was going to work in jewelry.”This description immediately made him think of Neelam, although he dismissed it at the time as an unlikely coincidence.Regarding his admiration for her, Samir said: “At the time, and still is, one of the most beautiful actresses. My friends might say that she is out of your range, don’t even think about it.”Eventually fate brought them together again for a Diwali party after almost a year and a half. There, Sameer confessed to producer Ekta Kapoor that he was interested in Neelam.
“Ekta introduced us,” he said, adding: “I told Neelam that I don’t usually say this, but I think you are very nice. Then I said I will call you and left. I didn’t even have her phone number.”Samir revealed that a similar interaction occurred several times before he finally gathered the courage to contact her three years later. Recounting that moment, he said: “I asked myself, ‘Why am I doing this? I should just talk to her.’Once they started spending time together, they were both sure about the future of their relationship. Samir said: “If we are together, we will get married. This is how we looked at each other from the beginning.”Neelam Kothari and Sameer Soni married in 2011 and then welcomed their daughter, Ahana Soni, in September 2013.
