The story behind Twinkle’s pen name

The actor-turned-author talks about how she came up with her famous pen name, Mrs Funnybones

Back in 2015, when she decided to try her hand at writing, the first thing that stood out was Twinkle Khanna’s pen name, Mrs Funnybones (her Twitter handle is also the same). But not many know the history behind such an unusual and intriguing pen name. Twinkle explains: “Right at the beginning, when everybody had joined Twitter, I too did and my first tweet was about a politician, who had been slapped. The second one had to do with an Indian epic. So my family told me, ‘you can’t be on this platform otherwise we will soon have morchas outside our house’ (laughs).”

But later, due to professional reasons, the actor-turned-writer was asked to create a Twitter account. However, the handle, ‘Twinkle Khanna’ was already taken. “At that time, I already had a handle, Mrs Funnybones. Since my family was against me joining the platform, my intention was to anonymously troll people (laughs) and make all the jokes through it. Since I am sort of an impulsive person, I decided that since I am not getting the handle, Twinkle Khanna, I will be Mrs Funnybones. It was that simple and there was no thought process as such behind it,” she says.

But why the peculiar name? “I have had a very peculiar way of looking at life. So, I have broken all my bones — my arms, legs, collar bones — at some point or the other. That used to distress me but then I decided to laugh at myself. If one goes through my paparazzi pictures, you will see that until 40, either some part of my body was always in a cast, or I was limping or I had a crepe bandage on my legs. So, I capitalised on all these ‘disabilities’ to laugh at myself and came up with Mrs Funnybones,” she says.

Twinkle goes on to admit that today educational institutions invite her to “talk about brand building and how I built this brand”. She says: “Sometimes, I literally want to tell them that if you are true to who you are, then you already have a brand.”

PHOTO: DABBOO RATNANI Twinkle Khanna