The prodigal host returns

After a lot of parleys, Salman Khan has finally agreed to be part of Bigg Boss 13 for five more weeks. The drama ensued for several days when the channel and production house were trying to cajole the Dabangg star to continue hosting the show for the extended weeks as they wanted to push the show more due to rollicking TRPs.

“Salman has agreed to be a part of the extension after his production team of the film Radhe: Your Most Wanted Bhai managed to rework the schedules to shoot their film in order to not miss the release date in Eid next year. Initially, Salman was contracted to shoot from September 29 till January 12 when the finale was to be held. But with the extension, Salman will need to be in Mumbai till February 17 to shoot till the new finale. So the makers are also working to shoot portions in between the shoot. It will make Salman’s schedule and life very hectic, but then there was no option,” says our source.

Incidentally, Farah Khan was also in contention to replace Salman, and she may still make an appearance on the show in the weeks to come. “We are not sure how, but then she has kind of given them her dates already. Farah did host a spin-off called Bigg Boss Halla Bol during the eighth season of Bigg Boss. The show started first with Arshad Warsi and then went to Shilpa Shetty and then Amitabh Bachchan as the host. Sanjay Dutt had joined Salman for the fifth season of the show, but the numbers didn’t show and hence the channel has been keen on Salman Khan only,” says the source.

Bigg Boss now has versions in six other Indian languages — Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Kannada, Marathi and Malayalam — with some of the biggest names from each region hosting the show.