Karan Johar is evidently not the kind to forgive and forget easily and the sharp-tongued filmmaker will even make jibes at himself to put his point across! At a recent promotional event for his upcoming production, Ittefaq, he made yet another allusion to his alleged nepotism, which Kangana Ranaut had famously accused him of on his talk show,’Koffee With Karan’.
Karan brought out the ‘N’ word at the press conference of the thriller, where he was joined on the dais by the cast including Sidharth Malhotra, Sonakshi Sinha, and Akshay Khanna, along with producers Shah Rukh and Kapil Chopra, and director Abhay Chopra. Tongue firmly in cheek, Karan declared, “On the platform, today, there are two non-nepotistic people - Shah Rukh Khan and Sidharth Malhotra and rest of us - Sonakshi Sinha, daughter of veteran actor Shatrughan Sinha, Akshay Khanna, son of late actor Vinod Khanna, Abhay Chopra and Kapil Chopra, sons of late filmmaker Ravi Chopra, are the brand ambassador of nepotism. As we stand together, it speaks a volume about how worthy they are equally, efficiently and correctly...”
Karan is clearly not in any mood to let the matter of his alleged nepotism, rest. Kangana had stirred up the entire issue when she had declared to Karan on his talk show on national TV: “Karan Johar is a star and he has given me a lot of unnecessary attitude... In my biopic, if ever it's made, you'll play that stereotypical Bollywood biggie, who is like you know... very snooty and completely intolerant towards outsiders, flag bearer of nepotism, the movie mafia.”
Round Two saw Karan, Saif Ali Khan and Varun Dhawan perform an act at IIFA earlier this year that took some pointed jibes at the actress, with a dollop of humour. When Varun Dhawan came on stage to receive his award, Saif Ali Khan said, “You are here because of your papa.”
To which Dhawan replied, “And, you’re here because of your mummy.” And Johar added, “I am here because of my papa,” and then the trio shouted: "Nepotism rocks!"
That wasn’t the end of the matter, and now Karan felt the need to drive his point home again, as he brought up the topic again quipping that non-nepotistic people like Shah Rukh Khan can co-exist with a ‘brand ambassador of nepotism’ like himself in the same industry.
