Sidharth Malhotra confirms Kiara Advani is on his speed dial
Promoting Mission Majnu, the actor confirmed a claim co-star Varun Dhawan had made months earlier about his phone's contact list.
Sidharth Malhotra confirmed in a Pinkvilla interview published January 13, 2023 that his rumored girlfriend and Shershaah co-star Kiara Advani is on his speed dial. Asked directly whether it was true, Malhotra said: "Yes, I do. It comes in handy to call up your co-actor. A lot of other people are also in it."
The interview came during the promotional run for Malhotra's spy thriller Mission Majnu, which was set for release on Netflix on January 20, 2023. Pinkvilla reported the claim had first surfaced from Varun Dhawan, who told interviewers during the JugJugg Jeeyo promotional cycle that Malhotra was on Advani's speed dial list.
What the coverage does not establish is when the two actors' numbers were added to each other's phones, or whether either has since removed the other, given that Advani and Malhotra kept their relationship largely unconfirmed in public statements around this period. Pinkvilla's report is the only outlet reviewed here with a direct, on-record quote from Malhotra himself; other coverage of the claim traces back to the same interview.
What changed: a running joke got an on-record answer
For months, the speed-dial claim had circulated as secondhand gossip, attributed to Dhawan rather than to either Malhotra or Advani directly. The January 13 Pinkvilla interview changed that by putting the question to Malhotra himself and getting a first-person confirmation rather than a denial or a deflection.
Malhotra also joked about turning the arrangement into a form of surveillance, telling Pinkvilla he would use the speed-dial access to track "how many times she workout in the month," adding he could call the effort "Mission CrossFit or Not Fit or Is She Fit?" — a play on the Mission Majnu title he was there to promote.
The framing: co-star access, not a relationship announcement
Yes, I do. It comes in handy to call up your co-actor. A lot of other people are also in it.
Malhotra's phrasing framed the speed-dial confirmation as a practical matter of working with a frequent co-star rather than a comment on the relationship rumors themselves — he described Advani as one of several colleagues he keeps on quick-access contact, not as a singular case. Pinkvilla's report also noted that Advani had previously acknowledged Malhotra as someone she talks to often, without either actor using language that confirmed a romantic relationship at the time.
What it signals: promotion-cycle banter as a relationship barometer
The exchange is a useful marker of how Bollywood press cycles handled the Malhotra-Advani rumor before either actor spoke to it directly: journalists routed questions about the relationship through lighthearted, deniable framing — phone contacts, joking surveillance — rather than asking for a status update outright, and Malhotra's answer stayed inside that same register. The two married later, in February 2023, weeks after this interview, though that fact is outside what the January 13 Pinkvilla report itself covered.
US In News compiled this archived account from contemporaneous coverage by Pinkvilla. It restores a story originally published on this site in January 2023; figures are as reported at the time.