Karan Johar Admits Almost Murdering Anushka Sharma's Career As He Advised Aditya Chopra Not To Sign Her

Karan Johar admitted that he nearly "ruined" Anushka Sharma's career when he asked Aditya Chopra not to sign her for Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi. According to rumours, Karan watched Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi reluctantly since he wanted Sonam Kapoor to be in the movie. Yet, he was moved when he saw her in Band Baaja Baaraat and considered making an apology.

With the 2008 movie, in which she co-starred with Shah Rukh Khan, Anushka Sharma made a successful debut. Aditya Chopra directed the box office smash, which was a huge success. Anushka Sharma and Aishwarya Rai, the leads in Karan's film Ae Dil Hai Mushkil, joined him for an on-stage conversation with Rajeev Masand and Anupama Chopra at the 18th MAMI Mumbai Film Festival in 2016. About Anushka, Karan had commented, “I totally wanted to, completely murder Anushka Sharma's career. Because when Aditya Chopra showed me her image, I was like, ‘no, no, mad or what, you signing her, you crazy! There is no need for you to sign this Anushka Sharma'. There was another lead actress at that time who I wanted Adi to sign and I was totally behind the scene sabotaging her completely. The movie also I was reluctantly watching Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi.” He continued by mentioning how her performance in another movie altered his perception of her. "But when I saw Band Baaja Baaraat, I called her and I felt like I owed her an apology and a compliment. Apology because I felt so embarrassed that I would have actually ruined the graph of an exceptional talent and secondly, a compliment because I thought she was amazing." This video from the 2016 event was just published on Reddit. Many people were not pleased with Karan's statement. “Wow. He himself is admitting that he kept trying to sabotage her career”, a Reddit member said. One user wrote, “Just completely loving how he is openly accepting how capable he is to murder/ sabotage anyone’s career and able to replace the cast and change their career graphs as he wants!!” Another user commented, “It's gross how he can so comfortably admit to doing this stuff and nobody bats an eye. I feel as though this info getting out about someone in Hollywood would be hugely damaging to their career. But the power dynamic in Bollywood means that he won't feel any of the backlash from straight up admitting to this. Ew.”