Bollywood actor-producer-director Aamir Khan has become a father for the third time, using a surrogate mother, his publicist said yesterday. The baby boy was born at a private clinic on December 1, the spokesman said. The child was “very healthy” and now at home with Khan and his filmmaker wife Kiran Rao in Mumbai, he added. “It was a baby through surrogacy. It’s the first baby he’s had with Kiran... Kiran had a couple of miscarriages in the past so they had medical reasons to try out surrogacy,” he said. The Mid-Day newspaper’s website said that Khan and Rao had released a letter confirming the birth, saying that the baby was “especially dear to us because he was born to us after a long wait and some difficulty. “Due to medical complications, we were advised to have a baby through IVF (in-vitro fertilisation) surrogacy and we feel very grateful to the Almighty that everything has gone well.” Khan is one of Bollywood’s most popular and successful actors, through hits including Lagaan in 2001, Rang de Basanti (2006) and Three Idiots (2010). In recent years he has pushed the boundaries beyond Bollywood’s traditional song-and dance formula with films like the satirical Peepli Live (2010), with an emphasis on high-quality script-writing. Khan, 46, has two children from his first marriage to Reena Dutta. He married Rao, 38, in 2005. Khan ended his 15-year-old marriage to Dutta in 2002.During the filming of Lagaan, Khan met assistant director Rao, and they fell in love and tied the knot in 2005.