Filmmaker, TV host and now radio jockey, Karan Johar recently recorded a ‘reverse rapid fire’ on his show with callers throwing random questions at him.
When a caller asked him if he thought asking a celebrity to lose weight for a role amounted to body-shaming, he admitted that he was guilty of the deed. “I pushed Alia (Bhatt) to lose weight and now, when I see her hysterical about how she looks, I feel responsible,” he sighed, adding that when she came in, she was “pleasantly plump” but since a pre-requisite of mainstream cinema is that actresses be in great shape, he told her this and now she’s obsessed with her weight. “She’s in the gym every day and even if she puts on an extra kilo, she goes crazy. I think I am to blame for it. Now that I am a parent, I would never do this to Roohi and I would like to apologise to Alia.”
For the show, which will air on January 9 on 104.8 Ishq FM, the filmmaker reminisced about how miserable he has felt when he was at the receiving end of comments like “You’ve put on weight”.
When asked on Bollywood’s fixation with “skinny”, Johar explained that it is an emulation of the West and B-town has always been obsessed with Hollywood. “If they’re thin, sexy and wear satin gowns on the red carpet, we want to do the same,” he rued.
When asked to pick out Bollywood’s best shaped bodies, he singled out Katrina Kaif and Hrithik Roshan and revealed that he camouflages his extra kgs with black clothes. “Women wear salwar kameez and men wear loose clothes for the same reason,” he quipped.