Saif, Varun, Karan chant nepotism rocks' at an award show; face backlash

Mumbai: In the recent days, nepotism- the word has been the most used and searched word, courtesy­­- the nepotism controversy ignited by the fierce Kangana Ranaut on filmmaker Karan Johar’s chat show.

Filmmaker Karan, (son of producer Yash Johar) who hosted an award show in New York along with Saif Ali Khan (son of actress Sharmila Tagore) and Varun Dhawan (son of director David Dhawan), who joined them for a segment, took a dig at Kangana by chanting ‘nepotism rocks’ at the award function.

When Varun, who won Best Actor in a Comic Role for his film ‘Dishoom’ came to collect the award on stage, Saif (Kangana’s co-star from ‘Rangoon’) referred to the nepotism row that caused a huge havoc in Bollywood.

This is the conversation the trio had on stage:

    Saif to Varun: "You are here because of your Papa."

    Varun to Saif: "And you're here because of your mummy."

    Karan Johar: “I am here because of my Papa.”

    KJo, Saif and Varun said in unison: "Nepotism rocks."

However, this did not go well with a certain sect of audiences and the trio faced severe storm of criticism on Twitter for joking about it in Kangana’s absence.

The ones tweeting included Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi:

Earlier, this year in February, Kangana Ranaut accused Karan Johar for being 'intolerant' towards outsiders and a 'flag bearer of nepotism' on his popular chat show, which led to an outrage of a harsh banter between the two via different interviews to the media.

After which, Karan at an event in London said that he was done with the 31-year-old actress playing the ‘woman and victim card.

Kangana's comeback appeared in an interview to Mumbai Mirror: "I use every card possible. At the workplace, it's the badass card to fight cutthroat competition. With my family and loved ones, it's the love card. When fighting the world, it's the dignity card, and for a seat in a bus, it's the woman card."

"Why is Karan Johar trying to shame a woman for being a woman? This kind of talk is demeaning to all women. I can't speak for Karan Johar's understanding of nepotism. If he thinks that it is restricted to nephews, daughters and cousins, I have nothing to say. But, to say that he chose not to give me work is to mock an artiste. His memory appears to be poor because we worked together in a movie (Ungli), which was produced by him. And quickly realised our sensibilities did not match," she added.

Other celebrities who spoke about the boiling controversy were:

Aamir Khan said that helping friends and family was a 'normal human tendency,'

Sonam Kapoor said on NDTV Spotlight that she found Kangana 'very entertaining,'

Karan's protege Alia Bhatt said too much was being made of the issue, and actresses Anushka Sharma and Swara Bhaskar - neither of who have Bollywood roots - denied nepotism exists in the industry.

Karan Johar , who for the last and final time wrote in a column for NDTV.com: "I accept that nepotism is a reality, that it exists. Nepotism is a result of easy access to an exceptional resource. I acknowledge that my father was a producer and that made my first film, even the idea of it, possible. But let's also not forget that I started as the son of a producer with five failures behind him."

Kangana will next be seen in Hansal Mehta’s ‘Simran,’ and his ‘Rangoon’ co-actor Shahid Kapoor won Best Actor Award for ‘Udta Punjab.’