Filmmaker Karan Johar, whose celebrity show Koffee with Karan has sparked numerous controversies both inside and beyond the business, claims that negative talk is nothing more than an illusion.
The seventh season of Johar’s chat show, which has featured the complete roster of Indian film stars and attracted criticism for many of their frank remarks about coworkers and other people, is about to begin.
“There was a lot of social media hate generally towards Bollywood at one point and ‘Koffee with Karan’ popped up as one of the targets… But I knew even then that this is all virtual, it’s not real. It’s not really the truth because had it been why would Disney+ Hotstar want to do the show? Why would actors want to come on the show?”
“Why would I be still interested in doing it? I think we were all aligned. And that’s why we realised that all that negative banter was just that — it was a mirage. It didn’t really exist. None at all,” Johar told PTI in an interview here.
“How can you suddenly start hating Bollywood, something you have loved for over 100 years?” asked the filmmaker.
“And then there were movies that started doing phenomenally well. You realise that people were watching television and films. They came back when they really wanted to. When that was happening, then what hate?” he added.
Faceless and nameless trolls need to realise that the hate spread by them on social media is “not a real feeling”, said Johar. “You can only hate when you’re feeling miserable yourself or you are a hater. From Bollywood to bananas, you can hate everything. But at the end of the day, that hate is not a real feeling. It’s just coming out of people’s frustrations and anger. I just hope those nameless and faceless people, who troll and spread negativity, realise that it all comes back to them, to bite them, not us,” the director added.
Johar, who has been hosting the show since its first season in 2004, admitted that celebrities often self-censor when they take the couch.
The filmmaker, however, said Koffee With Karan runs on the “vibe” of the stars, not on controversies. “They do censor themselves, but the idea is to try and create joy even out of that. It’s never about the answers, sensationalism or controversy. It’s about the vibe. That’s what the show taps into,” he added.
