Comedian reveals how denying an arranged marriage at 14 years old cost her relationship with her father

Fox News

04-05-2025

At just 14 years old, stand-up comedian Zarna Garg made a gutsy decision that changed the trajectory of her life.
After refusing her father's arranged marriage, she left her wealthy family home in Mumbai, India, and later immigrated to America, causing her father to never speak to her again.
The stand-up comedian got deep with Fox News' Brian Kilmeade regarding her estranged relationship with her father, detailing the difficult situation on an episode of "The Brian Kilmeade Show."
"My dad was like, 'Listen, if you don't want to get married, you can't live here.' He thought he would scare me into submission and I thought he would come around. See, I thought, he's riddled with grief because his wife has just died, my mom. And that he's going to come around and this is all going to be okay. We were basically in a face-off," the comedian said Thursday.
Garg explained that she left home planning to room with her friends while things with her father cooled down. But what started as a fun "slumber party" eventually turned into two years of couch-surfing.
"I showed up at my friend's house and after a day, my friend's mom is like, 'You should go back.' And that's when it hit me. I was like, 'Oh my God, I have nowhere to go.' And it was almost two years of, 'Where can I go tonight?'"
Although she remained in school, Garg explained how every day was a "new trauma" of trying to figure out where to sleep.
"In hindsight, a lot of my comedy has its roots in those years, because a big reason people opened their doors to me was because I made them laugh. You know, I always kept things light. I tried to offer whatever value I could, you know, around the dinner table or whatever was going on," she explained to Kilmeade.
After a long standoff, Garg said she eventually went "crawling back" to her father. At the time, she was trying to get an immigration visa to live with her sister in America.
Kilmeade interjected, saying he could not believe Garg's father did not "cave."
"Believe it, because people back home [India] are that severe. Like, I know in America it feels like a lot, but the guys back home, they're not fooling around. When they say you're going to listen to me or else, they mean it," she replied.
Garg got her U.S. visa in 1992 and went on to get an undergraduate degree from the University of Akron, later graduating from the Case Western University School of Law.
For Garg's father, her departure from India was the final straw. She explained that he had stopped all communication with her, and became "estranged completely." Garg never spoke to her father again, and was even prohibited from attending his funeral.
Despite this, the comedian continued to profess that her father was coming from a "good place."
"I know it feels shocking here in America, but what he remembers is that I walked away from a guaranteed life that he was going to set up for me. He wasn't a bad guy, to be clear. He wasn't. He came from a good place. I have three siblings who were arranged. My sister was arranged and is deliriously happy and successful," Garg concluded.