Amaal Mallik Says His Family Name Worked Against Him: 'Removed Me From Job After Finding My Surname'

Music composer and Bigg Boss 19 contestant Amaal Mallik recently revealed how his journey in Bollywood hasn’t been as easy as many might assume. In one of his latest interviews, he stated that despite being born into a musical family, the road wasn’t smooth and in some ways, his surname became a barrier rather than a blessing.

Opening up about his early years in the industry, Amaal explained that his formative decade from 15 to 25 was packed with struggle. "From the age of 15 to 25, what I saw in 10 years, usually people might see it as a different timeline but for me it was all very good because all those struggles, all those difficulties, all those obstacles happened at the earliest stages of my life,” he said in an interview with Pinkvilla.

Amaal shared that as a teenager they weren’t handed things on a platter and he hustled as an assistant and even a runner, carrying hard disks for post-production work just to earn some money.

But what struck him most was how people reacted to his family name. “Wherever I got a job as an assistant, the moment they found out that my surname was Mallik, they would remove me from the job… ‘Oh, he’s from that family, he might sell out our music,’ or whatever. There was this kind of notion. So it actually worked against me and my brother (singer Armaan Malik),” Amaal revealed.

He concluded with a message about perseverance that even with a legacy behind him, building his career required patience, hard work and constant proving of his own worth.

On the professional front, Amaal was recently seen in Bigg Boss 19, where he emerged as one of the top five finalists. The show was won by actor Gaurav Khanna.