Karan Johar: “I would like to apologise to Alia”

Karan Johar has always represented mainstream cinema, and with it has had his actors and actresses look a certain way. However, now he feels he has added to the problems of body shaming within the industry and reveals his experience with Alia Bhat when he launched her.

“I asked Alia (Bhatt, who debuted with his ‘Student of the Year’ in (2012) to lose weight and now, when I see her hysterical about how she looks, I feel responsible,” Mumbai Mirror reports the filmmaker explaining when asked about the subject of body shaming.

Explaining how she was averagely healthy when she first came to him, he expressed how she has become consumed by the pressure of actresses needing to be in shape. Johar went on to add, “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.”

Talking about why Bollywood has become so body obsessive, Johar explains how it’s due to the constant need to be like Hollywood. “If they’re thin, sexy and wear satin gowns on the red carpet, we want to do the same,” he said.

With Johar expressing his own regrets with the matter, here’s hoping the issue of body shaming quickly becomes a thing of the past.