Kajol And Karan Johar’s Fallout: How 2016 Box Office Clash Turned Best Friends Into Strangers | Throwback Tales

In Bollywood, the friendship of Kajol and Karan Johar is one of the most beloved bonds in Hindi cinema. More than 25 years of friendship, during which the two literally grew up together. The actress was considered a lucky charm by the director and starred in several of his films. However, after years of friendship, a clash between Karan's Ae Dil Hai Mushkil and Kajol's husband Ajay Devgn's Shivaay led to an ugly fallout between the once inseparable best friends. Here's how the 2016 box office clash changed Bollywood friendships forever.

The cold war between Kajol and Karan Johar started in 2016 when the director's movie Ae Dil Hai Mushkil and Ajay Devgn's directorial Shivaay clashed at the box office on Diwali. Ahead of the release, Ajay shared a post featuring a phone conversation between the co-producer of Shivaay and self-proclaimed critic Kamaal R Khan, who claimed that Karan Johar had paid him Rs 25 lakh for a favourable review of his film. This was not all. The rift between Kajol and Karan deepened after the actress re-shared the post in her husband's favour. This move soured things for Kajol and Karan; many thought it marked the end of their long-term friendship. 

The Retweet That Turned Bollywood’s BFFS Into Strangers

Kajol's retweet did not go down well with Karan, who later dedicated a chapter in his autobiography, An Unsuitable Boy to the then-strained relationship between him and his best friend. An excerpt from the chapter read, "I wouldn’t like to give a piece of myself to her at all because she’s killed every bit of emotion I had for her for twenty-five years. I don’t think she deserves me. I feel nothing for her anymore."

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Karan also addressed the clash between Ae Dil Hai Mushkil and Shivaay in his book. Another excerpt read,  "Prior to the release of Ae Dil Hai Mushkil, there’s a lot that happened. Things were said, crazy accusations were made against me, that I had bribed someone to sabotage her husband’s film. I can’t even say that I was hurt or pained by it. I just wanted to blank it out. When she reacted to the whole situation and put out a tweet saying, ‘Shocked!’ that’s when I knew it was completely over for me. The tweet validated the insanity that she could believe I would bribe someone. I felt that’s it. It’s over. And she can never come back to my life. I don’t think she wants to either."

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