Salman Khan Planning to Move to London Permanently, Says Sources

Mumbai’s rumour racket is in full swing this week with a huge rumour about Salman Khan. The Bollywood megastar is reportedly hard at work preparing to move to London for good. The stories say that “sources close to the actor” have stated that he is planning to leave his iconic Bandra home, Galaxy Apartments, behind to lead a quiet life in the UK.

However, anyone who knows the reality of the Indian movie industry and Salman’s huge business empire within India knows that such a headline is not very probable. The speculation appears to have been fueled by the fact that the actor has been making several short trips to the UK to attend short professional engagements and high-profile meetings. He even recently met with British politicians at Wembley Stadium, and just a year ago, canceled a major UK performance tour out of respect for public events that were taking place at home. The international travels are a typical part of an actor’s career, but in this case, they have been turned into a constant emigration story thanks to the internet.

The task of taking a global celebrity brand such as Salman Khan from one continent to the other is not as straightforward as purchasing a mansion in London. The actor was forging a huge personal and professional empire firmly entrenched in the Mumbai ecosystem, with nearly 40 years of experience. He has been shot in the movies every day, he has worked for television on huge contracts and he has been involved in philanthropic ventures, all of which are connected to this city.

However, legal issues prevent a permanent move from being possible.

The single biggest obstacle to all of this relocation speculation is Salman Khan’s extremely complex and on-going legal situation in India. The actor had been part of some of the most active and controversial case laws of the country over the past decades, such as the blackbuck poaching case in Rajasthan in 1998 and the hit and run case in 2002.

Salman Khan's Historical UK Visa Roadblocks
* 2013: Initial UK visa application rejected due to ongoing Indian court convictions.
* 2013: Granted temporary entry later that year after filing a technical appeal.
* 2015: Supreme Court cancels a High Court stay on his conviction, restricting easy travel.
* Current Status: Under strict travel approvals; permanent residency is legally unfeasible.

Such legal issues give rise to huge structural problems in the realm of international law of immigration. British immigration is notoriously strict on people with active criminal convictions and/or past convictions with prison sentences. In 2013, when Salman applied for his visa in the UK, his production teams were unable to shoot the movie Kick until a legal solution was worked out, as a result of the poaching cases. The Supreme Court of India later reversed a lower court’s stay on his conviction in 2015, saying the conviction couldn’t be stayed just to assist a celebrity in getting a foreign visa.

He is currently out on bail, and is subject to strict court restrictions on his ability to travel outside India, while a number of legal appeals continue to slowly work their way through the Indian judiciary system. He has to constantly ask for special permission to travel to shoot a specific script or for awards shows. It is a complete red herring that British immigration officials would be willing to issue a foreign national a permanent residency or long-term investment visa if he had his type of legal background.

The big money, the big money that was based in Mumbai.The vast financial empire fixed to Mumbai.

It is not mathematically sound, even if you disregard the legal issue altogether, for his business house. Salman Khan is not merely an actor earning a paycheck; he is a huge business that employs thousands of people in India’s entertainment industry.

He is currently very busy in the pre-production and shooting schedule for the upcoming major film projects like ‘Sikandar’ directed by AR Murugadoss. Moreover, he has been the only high paid cast member since 2010 in the reality TV craze – Bigg Boss. That one TV show demands his physical presence in a Mumbai studio for several months each year, and earns the network a huge amount of ad revenues and for the actor an astronomical amount of money.

The Salman Khan Financial Ecosystem
* Film Production: Multi-crore projects under Salman Khan Films shot primarily on Indian sets.
* Television Deals: Mandatory multi-month physical presence in Mumbai for hosting Bigg Boss.
* Philanthropy: Head of the Being Human Foundation, managed via corporate offices in India.
* Brand Endorsements: Dozens of active Indian corporate contracts requiring local ad shoots.

His philanthropic organisation, the Being Human Foundation, is also highly localised, operating interventions in health and education in different Indian states. His production company, Salman Khan Films, has all its offices in Mumbai. Operating this much hyper local business infrastructure in London on a full-time basis would create operational hassle on an unprecedented scale, and massive tax complications on two continents.

He’s staying home for security reasons

One of the other reasons for these rumors that have swirled around in the public eye is the many security issues the actor has been exposed to in the past couple of years. The government authorities enhanced security around the actor at the maximum Y-plus level after receiving serious and explicit threats from gang syndicates.

A few times back, when there was a shooting incident outside his Bandra residence, his fans lost all their senses and theories were rife that he might want to move out of India due to the stressful environment. Of course, when he travels to London or Dubai or elsewhere, he is usually accompanied by a smaller, more discreet bodyguard, and he does get to experience a bit of a “normal life” outside the intense local security.