On Saturday, January 20th, cricketer Shoaib Malik confirmed some of the fans' worst fears and several months of speculation surrounding his personal life. With an Instagram post, the Pakistan cricketer announced his marriage to actor Sana Javed and thereby much to the shock, anger and disbelief of netizens, his divorce with now former wife Sania Mirza.
"And we created you in pairs," read the collaborative post from the newly married couple in their wedding outfits. "But this is his third pair," read one of the many comments bashing the cricketer on allegations of cheating on his wife Sania Mirza, the Indian tennis sports star.
The rumors of a rift between the couple have grown wider and stronger since over a year now and coincided with his growing intimacy with Javed. Back in March, Malik extended birthday wishes for the actor on her 30th birthday in a post, "Happy Birthday Buddy."
Fans this side of the border were also quick to interpret Sania Mirza's stories pertaining divorce, marriage and life. "Marriage is hard. Divorce is hard. Choose your hard..." read the lengthy quote. Sania and Malik tied the knot in 2010 in Hyderabad and have been staying in UAE. The couple has a five year old son Izhaan and has also hosted a popular celebrity talk show which airs in Pakistan.
Malik's third marriage, Javed's second
Before Mirza, Malik was first married to a Hyderabadi teacher Ayesha Siddique, with whom he had a messy, controversial divorce. Siddique publicly alleged that Shoaib was getting married to Sania without divorcing her. She reportedly filed a police complaint, and furnished videos and pics as proof of her marriage. Malik divorced her just days before marrying Sania Mirza.
Who is Sana Javed?
An actor in Pakistan TV industry, Javed shot to fame after dramas like Ruswai where she plays a rape victim and Khaani, where she seeks justice against her slain brother's powerful murderer. In March of 2022, Pakistani model Manal Saleem said in her social media post alleging Javed of calling her a, "2 takkay ki model" to her face. Saleem's post immediately led to several make-up and junior artists who had worked with Javed open up about their horrible experience of working with her.
Ikram Gohar, a popular make-up artist who has worked with Mahira Khan, Mehwish Hayat and several other celebs, called Javed, "unprofessional and horrible" in a social media post. The post further read, "You should be banned in this industry, we are very professional and respectful and hard working people and we all are equal and have respect...I worked with many big celebrities and they all are very sweet, humble and respectful people, always love to work with them but will never work with you again."
Hair and make-up artist Rhyan Thomas also shared his experience in a lengthy post, saying that finally after two years he gathered the courage to pen it down after seeing his colleagues from the industry do the same. The detailed post shares what all transpired when Sana Javed hired Thomas to do her make-up for an award show. He alleges that on the pretext of a migraine, she kept him hanging throughout the evening, insured that he could not do make-up of other models, and then even belittled his make-up skills. He ends the post by showing solidarity to his colleagues. "How many people must be getting mistreated at the hands of such individuals." Model Fareeha Shaikh was also one of the many who stepped forward to share their experience.
Almost two to three days after the allegations surfaced, Javed reportedly slapped a Rs 100 million defamation lawsuit against model Manal Saleem. She called all the allegations, "a proper planned smear campaign against me by a group of individuals." She further called the incident, "one side of the story," and refused to give her side of the story or comment or discuss what was said or done.
Close on the heels of scandalous allegations, clothing brand Rang Rasiya dropped Javed as their brand ambassador and issued a statement on the matter. "In light of the recent allegations brought forth against Sana Javed, we at RangRasiya decided to disassociate ourselves from the concerned person who was before the main face of our Eid campaign. The recent incident involving Manal Saleem and Sana Javed had occurred on our shoot for which we as a brand are deeply disturbed too. We did a reshoot with another celebrity as we respect public sentiment, despite the cost that we have borne."
The criticism doesn't end there
Soon after the wedding post of Malik and Javed, the criticism didn't stop for the actress who was called "a homebreaker" by netizens from Pakistan itself before being brutally compared with Mirza and called out for her controversial past. While a fractional minority of those taking to their timeline wished the couple a happy married life, a large number of comments betted on the shelf life of the married relationship.
