Shah Rukh Khan vs. Salman Khan: the cold war
The fall-out
Condensed from i) Soumyadipta Banerjee, June 14, 2013 Salman Khan versus Shah Rukh Khan: The real story and ii) Daliya Ghose 13th March 2013 The full History behind Shahrukh-Salman enmity For the full, original stories, click the hyperlinks.
The spark
The souring of relations began with a verbal duel between Shah Rukh Khan and Salman Khan on 16th July, 2008 at a restaurant in Bandra West, Mumbai. It was later reported that Salman Khan and Shah Rukh came to blows because of an unsavoury remark made by the latter about his ex-girlfriend Aishwarya Rai. Daliya Ghose adds: The day was the 17th of July 2008, and also Katrina Kaif’s birthday. At that point Katrina happened to be Salman’s girlfriend. The two got into a very serious and heated verbal conversation when Shahrukh Khan happened to remark about Salman’s ex, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan. When the fight between the two was at its peak, the ladies, Gauri and Katrina came between them to calm things down. However, although they calmed down, the deed was down. The friendship that existed between the two was broken, and probably would never be mended.
Soumyadipta Banerjee believe that other causes could be because Shah Rukh upset because Salman had made an uncomplimentary comment about the reality show he was hosting? [Salman’s remark was that SRK’s reality show Kya Aap Paanchvi Pass Se Tez Hain not doing well. ] Or was it some deep-rooted, sub-conscious hate against each other coming to the fore because both were drunk?
Daliya Ghose gives additional reasons: Salman had asked Shahrukh to do a guest role in his film Main aur Mrs. Khanna, which had been declined by Shahrukh. This too had offended Salman to a great extent. Salman started bugging Shahrukh by saying that his show, Dus Ka Dum, was more popular than Shahrukh’s show, Kya Aap Paanchvi Pass Se Tez Hain?
Shahrukh has publicly apologized to Salman in a show, Koffee with Karan, the entire act was seen as a TRP rising act by Salman.
The reasons behind their fight are far too deep and their anger was simmering for years before it reached the tipping point.
Friends in the past
Salman treated Shah Rukh as member of his family When Shah Rukh was struggling to make his niche in the film industry, Salman had already reached stardom. There was a time when Shah Rukh used to address Salman as ‘Sir’
When Shah Rukh became famous, Salman had acknowledged him as a star and did a film with him called Karan Arjun (1995). Salman was a bigger star than Shah Rukh at that point of time.
A South producer managed to get them together again. Tamil producer K S Adhiyaman managed the feat and got the stars for a remake of his own Tamil film; the film was called Hum Tumhare Hain Sanam. The film went to the floors in 1997, but couldn’t cash in on the two Khans because it took more than six years in the making due to production delays and financial hassles. It was released in 2002 and managed to recover its money even though the look of both the heroes kept changing in different shots of the film. It was very funny!
The last film that saw the two Khans together in one frame was Om Shanti Om in 2007. It did not just feature Salman, but also his brother Arbaaz, his wife Malaika and his best friend Sanjay Dutt.
