Toilet – Ek Prem Katha actors Akshay Kumar and Bhumi Pednekar, both do not belong to filmi families and have yet made it big on their own in the entertainment industry. So we decided to find out what was their opinion about the ongoing nepotism debate in the film industry. In a ‘Keep It’ or ‘Flush It’ quiz we asked the two actors about nepotism debate and they both raised the Keep It placard. Well, at first Bhumi wanted to speak up something, but when her senior co-star nudged her to go first and said, “You can discuss” she withdrew and instead decided ask Akshay to go first. Suddenly the air had changed and Akshay quipped, “I’m not going to talk about it!” Soon Bhumi followed the suit and asked, “Why must I then?” and here’s what happened next…
Not just Akshay and Bumi, even Shah Rukh Khan’s response to the nepotism debate was quite similar. King Khan said during one of the Jab Harry Met Sejal promotional interviews, “”I don’t understand this (nepotism). How can I understand it? I am a Delhi boy, who went to Mumbai at the age of 25. There everybody loved me and accepted me. So, I don’t understand this talk” He also went on to add, “Even though I know enough English, still I don’t understand it and the discussion. Whether I agree or disagree — I don’t even understand it so how can I have an opinion?”
For those of you who’ve been living under the rock Kangana Ranaut raised a storm in a coffee cup quite literally when she debuted on Karan Johar’s popular chat show this year. The Simran actress accused Karan of being a flag bearer of nepotism and even suggested that she’d cast him as this baddie from the industry if ever there was a biopic made on the same. While Karan took on Kangana a few weeks later in an opinion column her wrote, the actor included his much talked about nepotism controversy in one of his IIFA 2017 on stage gags. KJo along with Varun Dhawan and Saif Ali Khan hailed the trend and went on to say “Nepotism Rocks”. This spiraled into another big controversy and Saif came out to justify their act after admitting that he had personally apologised to Kangana about the same. Varun Dhawan, who was also a part of this was the first one to come out and say sorry for this act. Of course not the one to take it lying down, Kangana took on Saif Ali Khan‘s open letter and penned one herself where she quashed all of her Rangoon co-star’s claims.
And looks like while SRK would play it extra safe, Akshay and Bhumi feel that the debate itself needs to go on… Well, we wonder what Karan Johar has to say about this one…