Nadia Khan

Nadia Khan was born in Quetta, Pakistan to a Niazi family, one of the largest Pashtun tribes predominately residing in Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan. Her father, Mohammed Aslam Khan, is a retired army colonel from Hoshiarpur, British India, and her mother, Tahira Khan, is a housewife from Sahiwal, Pakistan.^[5][6] Her father migrated to Lahore, Pakistan during the 1947 Partition of India and studied at Chistia High School before joining the Attabad-based Pakistan Military Academy in 1956. He served in the Pakistan Armed Forces from 1959 to 1986.^[7]

Khan completed her schooling from Federal Government Postgraduate College for Women, also known as C.B. College, that started as a small girls’ school on 26 Feb 1952 by the Rawalpindi Cantonment Board (RCB).^[8]

Khan made her television debut in 1993 with Daak Time (1993–1995), a Pakistani children’s show hosted by Farooq Qaiser featuring an anthropomorphic puppet Uncle Sargam, that aired on Network Television Marketing (NTM).^[9][10] She was cast in Pal Do Pal (1995), a romantic-drama written by Haseena Moin and directed by Syed Ali Bukhari.^[1][11] She later appeared in Bharam (1997), Mahrukh (1997), and Bandhan (1998),^[1] for which she won the PTV Best Actress Award, Laag (1998–2000), Des Pardes (1999), Manzilein (2000).

In 2003, Khan began hosting ARY Digital's morning show Breakfast with Nadia comprising segments on celebrities, culture, and daily life. She moved to Geo Entertainment in 2006 to host the Nadia Khan Show, interviewing a variety of Pakistani celebrities, artists, performers, religious leaders, athletes and politicians including Fawad Khan, Iman Ali, Atif Aslam, Rahat Fateh Ali Khan, Shahid Afridi, Imran Khan, Bobby Deol, Farida Jalal, and Saroj Khan. Originally airing from 2006 to 2010, the show returned for a second and third season in 2012 and 2013 before being cancelled. Khan won two Masala Lifestyle Awards, organized by Dubai-based ITP Media Group and Masala! magazine, for the Best TV Presenter in 2008 and 2009.^[12]

During this time, she also starred in Haseeb Hassan's Koi To Ho (2005), Faisal Qureshi's Main Aur Tum (2008), and Ye Hai Zindagi (2008). In August 2011, Khan hosted the Eid Transmission on Dunya News. She hosted Croron Mein Khel, a game show, on BOL Entertainment.

In January 2018, Khan became the first Pakistani beauty, fashion and lifestyle YouTube influencer to reach 100,000 subscribers on her YouTube channel, Outstyle.^[13][14]

In 2019, she started a morning show again on PTV named Morning @ home.^[15]

In the 1990s, Khan married Khawar Iqbal, with whom she has two children. The couple divorced after ten years.^[16] She married Faisal Mumtaz Rao, a retired Pakistan Air Force fighter pilot and son of Pakistani electronic media journalist Mumtaz Hamid Rao, in December 2020.^[17] She adopted her third child in 2020, when he was 20 days old.^[18]

Khan describes herself as “realistic feminist” and advocates for female emancipation over imposing a level of moral culpability on men at large.^[2]