When Karan Johar accused Akshaye Khanna of bullying him as a child, asked if he’s ‘rude, temperamental’: ‘I was scarred’

Akshaye Khanna has had many stops and starts in his career, and has experienced it all. From mainstream success after being launched in the industry to critical acclaim in what was seen as his 2.0 avatar post Dil Chahta Hai. But his output in recent years has been very limited. In an appearance on Koffee with Karan back in 2007, he was asked about his reputation of being ‘temperamental’.
“What about all this talk, Akshaye, there’s talk about you being temperamental, I keep reading that. But I’ve never faced that with you when we’ve met socially,” Karan said, posing the question to Anil Kapoor, who was Akshaye’s co-guest on the couch. Anil said, “Yes. He is sometimes unpredictable, absolutely, yes, but only a person who knows him will understand that he doesn’t mean to be temperamental or…”

Akshaye interjected with a laugh, “Say it, Anil. Rude.” Karan spotted an opening, and asked, “Are you rude, Akshaye?” The actor replied, “I used to be. Not anymore… I used to be very temperamental.”
Karan said, “I know, you’ve been very rude to me as a child. You don’t remember. We’ve grown up in the same neighbourhood. We used to be neighbours, we were south Bombay boys. And I used to play badminton, very badly, of course. And Akshaye was a great badminton player, and he used to just come and say, ‘You, you, off the court’. And we were these little surviving badminton players, we used to just walk away, and he was this star badminton player, and we used to be thrown off the court.” When Akshaye said that he’s making the story up, Karan replied, “I swear I’m not. I remember, I was scarred.”Best of Express PremiumPremiumPremiumPremiumPremium

Karan said that the ‘funniest meeting’ he had with Akshaye was when the actor thought that Karan was Sikandar Kher. Akshaye apologised to Karan on the show ‘on both counts’. Anil said that he always tells Akshaye to open up and meet people, and that he could spot the difference in him. Akshaye most recently collaborated with Karan on the film Ittefaq, which was co-produced Dharma Productions.