Bollywood actor Ranbir Kapoor has recalled meeting his wife Alia Bhatt, 11 years his junior (Picture: AP)

Bollywood actor Ranbir Kapoor has opened up about his marriage to Alia Bhatt, 11 years his junior, and the first time they met, when he was 20 years old and she was just nine.

The 41-year-old award-winning Indian actor, who is son to Bollywood legends Rishi Kapoor and Neetu Singh, married actress Alia in 2022.

But the couple actually met several years earlier, before she won her several acting accolades and starred in the likes of Student of the Year, Highway and Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani, which won her a record-tying fifth Filmfare Best Actress award.

In a new interview, Ranbir, who shares a daughter with Alia, 31, has opened up about first meeting his future-wife when she was just 9 years old, on a film set about ‘child marriage’.

The Barfi! and Rockstar actor explained: ‘I’m so lucky I married somebody I’m so close to as a friend where we can really chat, laugh, b***h. She’s my best friend, and I got really lucky with that.’

Speaking on Nikhil Kamath’s podcast, he went on: ‘Alia is a wonderful person. She’s very colourful.

The couple married in 2022 (Picture: Sujit Jaiswal/AFP via Getty Images)

Alia is considered one of India’s most successful stars (Picture: AFP/Getty Images)
‘She’s 11 years younger than me and it’s very funny, the first time I met Alia was when she was 9 years old and I was 20 years old and we did a photoshoot together because [Heeramandi director] Sanjay Leela Bhansali wanted to make a film called Balika Vadhu about child marriage.

‘That’s the first time I met her. It seems a little weird now to say.’

The couple began dating in 2018 after working on a film together, and moved in with each other during the pandemic.

In 2022, they tied the knot in a lavish Indian wedding ceremony, with members of the Ambani family and several Bollywood stars including filmmaker Karan Johar present.

They welcomed their daughter Raha that same year, and have both been recognised in Forbes India’s Celebrity 100 list, with Alia recorded as the highest-paid actress of 2019.

The couple began dating in 2018, but met years earlier, when Alia was just aged nine (Picture: Punit Paranje / AFP via Getty)
Elsewhere in the interview, Ranbir spoke about Alia changing her ‘loud tone’ for him, comments which have been hit with backlash.

He said: ‘She changed more for me than I have changed for her. I’m acknowledging it but I should do something about it. I should change a bit…

‘She, for example, used to speak in a very loud tone and I think because of my father’s tone growing up, it always kind of rattled me. So she really made efforts to change that and that’s not easy when you’ve spent 30 years of your life speaking in a certain way.’