Twenty-seven years is a long time.
Long enough that most of Vijay's fanbase grew up taking this marriage for granted โ the way you take for granted certain things that have always been there. Sangeetha at the audio launches. Sangeetha in the background of the family photographs. Vijay-and-Sangeetha as a single compound noun.
On February 27, 2026, Sangeetha Sornalingam filed a divorce petition in the Chengalpattu Family Court under the Special Marriage Act, 1954, citing infidelity and cruelty.
The marriage that began as a fan-meets-star fairytale in 1996 is legally over.
How It Started
The beginning of this story is almost impossibly cinematic โ which is perhaps appropriate, given the people involved.
It was 1996. Vijay had just delivered Poove Unakkaga, the film that announced something significant was arriving in Tamil cinema. Sangeetha Sornalingam was the daughter of a Sri Lankan Tamil industrialist settled in London. She was a fan โ genuinely, unreservedly so โ and she flew from London to Chennai specifically to congratulate him on his performance.
That's not something most people do. The fact that she did is apparently what caught his attention.
They met at Film City during a shoot. He was struck, by all accounts, by her simplicity โ the fact that she'd traveled that far for no agenda other than appreciation. He invited her home to meet his parents, director S.A. Chandrasekhar and Shoba. His parents liked her immediately. They were the ones who formally asked for her hand on his behalf.
In a different context this would be the ending. In this one, it was the beginning.
The Wedding โ
Two Countries, Two Traditions
They didn't do it simply. Then again, nothing about Vijay's life in that period was simple.
The marriage was first registered in the United Kingdom on July 10, 1998. A year later, on August 25, 1999, they held a ceremonial wedding at Rajah Muthiah Mandram in Chennai โ traditional Hindu ceremony, despite Vijay being Christian and Sangeetha being Hindu, followed by a reception that was exactly what you'd expect from Kollywood in 1999.
The detail that most people remember about the wedding โ if they know the story at all โ is how quiet Sangeetha stayed in the years that followed. Not absent, but not performing. Present at audio launches, visible at promotional events, and then back to her life with a consistency that the industry quietly respected.
Twenty Years of Getting On With It
The two decades between the 1999 wedding and 2020 don't make for a dramatic story, which is probably the point.
Their son Jason Sanjay was born in 2000. Their daughter Dhivya Saasha arrived in 2005. Vijay went from promising newcomer to "Thalapathy" โ the kind of cultural weight that title carries in Tamil Nadu is difficult to overstate for anyone outside of it. Sangeetha was there for all of it, consistently and quietly.
She wasn't a public figure in the way Vijay's world demanded. She was his wife, she was the children's mother, and she kept her own counsel in a way that the Tamil film industry โ which has strong opinions about everything โ largely left alone.
2021: When Things Changed
According to the divorce petition filed in February 2026, April 2021 is when the marriage began to fracture.
Sangeetha alleges she discovered at that point that Vijay was involved in an extramarital relationship with a prominent actress. The petition doesn't name the actress โ that detail will become part of court proceedings and has not been confirmed independently.
What followed, the petition claims, was an attempt at repair. Between September 2021 and February 2022, the couple underwent counseling. Vijay reportedly assured her the relationship had ended. The petition alleges it hadn't โ that it continued, and that Sangeetha was aware it continued.
The Public Signs
Nobody Quite Named
The fan community started noticing things in 2023 but framed them as questions rather than conclusions. Where was Sangeetha at the Varisu audio launch? She wasn't there. Her daughter's graduation โ apparently Sangeetha was absent from that too, or at least not publicly present.
Then came the TVK launch in 2024 โ Vijay's formal entry into politics, one of the most significant moments of his public life. Sangeetha wasn't there.
When a spouse is missing from enough of the large moments, people stop asking whether something is wrong and start asking what it is.
The petition mentions, as a specific source of what Sangeetha describes as "repeated humiliation," social media posts from the actress involved โ photographs from foreign travel, the kind of public documentation of a private relationship that she says caused harm to her and to their children.
The Long Goodbye
Legal notices were exchanged between August 2024 and February 2025. There were personal discussions attempting what the petition describes as an "honourable exit." The last of those conversations apparently failed in November 2025.
The court documents describe the marriage in early 2026 as "irretrievably broken" and surviving only on paper.
The specific legal grounds: Section 27 of the Special Marriage Act โ adultery and cruelty. The petition also cites "constructive desertion" โ a legal term that covers emotional withdrawal, verbal disdain, and the particular kind of absence that happens when two people still share an address but have stopped sharing anything else.
She has sought permanent alimony and the right of residence at her matrimonial home.
The Timeline
| Year | What Happened |
|---|---|
| 1996 | Sangeetha flies from London to meet Vijay at Film City |
| 1998 | Marriage registered in the United Kingdom, July 10 |
| 1999 | Ceremonial wedding at Rajah Muthiah Mandram, Chennai, August 25 |
| 2000 | Son Jason Sanjay born |
| 2005 | Daughter Dhivya Saasha born |
| 2021 | Sangeetha discovers alleged infidelity, April |
| 2021โ22 | Couple undergoes counseling, reconciliation attempted |
| 2023 | Sangeetha absent from Varisu audio launch โ speculation begins |
| 2024 | Vijay launches TVK; Sangeetha notably absent from ceremony |
| 2024โ25 | Legal notices exchanged, final discussions fail November 2025 |
| Feb 27, 2026 | Sangeetha files divorce petition, Chengalpattu Family Court |
What This Means Now
Vijay is in an unusual position โ arguably the most unusual of his career.
He entered 2026 having stepped back from acting to focus entirely on TVK and the Tamil Nadu elections. The political project was already complicated: building a party from scratch, establishing credibility as a first-time political figure, managing a fanbase that relates to him through the emotional register of cinema rather than governance.
A public divorce, on these grounds, in this timeline, adds something to that picture that he cannot simply address in an interview or manage with a statement.
How the Tamil public processes this will be genuinely interesting to watch โ because Thalapathy's image has always been built partly on a particular kind of off-screen integrity. That image is now contested, in a court filing, by the person who knew him longest.
For Sangeetha, the petition ends with a phrase that tells you everything about what she's been carrying:
a request for "dignity and peace" after years of alleged mental agony.
Twenty-seven years. That's what it came to.
Sangeetha Sornalingam filed a divorce petition in Chengalpattu Family Court on February 27, 2026, under the Special Marriage Act, 1954. The petition's allegations have not been independently verified. Vijay's legal team had not issued a formal response at the time of publication. Court proceedings are ongoing.
