Farah Khan, whose four films made over Rs 700 cr, says she has earned more in one year from YouTube | Bollywood News

Farah Khan, who has amassed around 2.5 million subscribers on YouTube, has become a digital sensation thanks to her wildly hilarious cooking vlogs featuring her ‘world famous’ chef, Dilip. His popularity has soared so much that he has begun headlining advertisements, including one alongside Shah Rukh Khan. Farah’s journey has been one of a kind — coming from a broken home where her father — a filmmaker — died penniless, she started as a choreographer, graduated to a filmmaker, judged reality shows and is now a content creator with her YouTube channel. Given her early years, Farah has earlier said that she remains determined to seize every opportunity and remains insecure about money.In a recent conversation with Soha Ali Khan on her podcast, Soha spoke to Farah about how she has earned more in the last one year than from making blockbusters, choreographing some of the most memorable Bollywood songs and judging India’s top reality shows.
How much Farah Khan earns from YouTube
Soha brought up the huge financial success Farah has achieved with her YouTube vlog, even surpassing earnings from her blockbuster directorials such as Main Hoon Na (box office earning Rs 89 crore), Om Shanti Om (box office earning Rs 152 crore), and her biggest hit, Happy New Year (box office earning Rs 383 crore). The total box office earning of her three Shah Rukh Khan starrers came to Rs 624 crore. She also directed Tees Maar Khan with Akshay Kumar in the lead. While the film didn’t attain the sort of success like the Shah Rukh Khan films, it made Rs 101.8 crores.
When asked how much she earns from YouTube, Farah responded modestly: “I don’t know what to say. Massive is a relative term. But I think I said it somewhere that in my entire career, maybe in a year, I’ve not made so much money, even though I’ve directed so many films and all.”
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She further explained how YouTube has given her creative independence: “There’s no ownership over the money. But it’s my channel, so I can do what I want. There’s no one telling me. There’s no OTT channel or no production house saying, ‘yeh toh kaatna padega, yeh toh daal le.’ And there’s no TV channel saying, ‘You can only bring this guest on,’ which I used to hate. I used to hate that so hard. You know, that is something from my inner core. I used to hate this demarcation, that this one is an A-ler, and this one is tacky. I used to genuinely just hate that. I now have the freedom to invite whoever I want.”
Farah Khan’s YouTube strategy
Farah said authenticity is the biggest currency on YouTube, which is why she avoids relying on makeup arts or styls. “That’s why I don’t keep a makeup person or a hair person or anything. I buy my clothes online, and I try to wear a new outfit for every vlog, only because it helps me keep track of with whom I shot that day,” she said. Consency, she added, matters just as much. “Only two weeks that we didn’t post anything was when my mom passed away. I was like, please don’t post anything. But literally when she was in hospital for 40 days, luckily, I don’t know why, I had banked like 8–9 episodes and kept. So that was consent. But when she passed away, I was like let’s not post. So that was the only two weeks that we have missed posting on our channel. See, I think this discipline comes from filmmaking, and like, I’m on the job. And we finish shooting in one and a half hour.”Story continues below this ad
YouTube will pay for my 3 kids’ university education: Farah
Farah laughed and replied: “Dilip can’t say anything unless I’m giving him the lines. So I have to be then the voice of Big Boss saying, ‘Dilip, now say this, now that…’” Speaking about Dilip, Farah also opened up about how she began her YouTube journey a year and a half ago. She recalled: “So I had finished writing my script for my movie, and I knew it’s a long wait now, waiting for it to go on floors. And people kept telling me, ‘Ma’am, it’s very lucrative,’ and, you know, ‘this one is making that much.’ I was like, abhi mere teen bachche university jaayenge, movie may not happen for a year or two. So okay, now I have time. I told them, ‘Achha, let’s try it.’ I said, I want to do something with food, because I’m comfortable. And you know, all my food reels used to go very, very viral.”
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How Dilip entered Farah’s vlogs
After filming her first video, Farah realised she would have to prep all the food while also holding the audience with a monologue. That’s when she decided to bring Dilip on camera. “I used to just tell him, ‘Tu yeh bol de’. I would give him the punchline and it just kind of exploded. the second vlog, we had our silver button,” she said. When asked how her three children react to her online fame, Farah admitted: “I think now I feel they are a little more embarrassed. I used to be a cool mom before. Because now their friends are watching me. So their friends are like, ‘Oh, you’re all poor because your mother said she started YouTube to pay for your university fees.’”
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Farah also spoke about how her cook Dilip has become “world famous,” and how much of their earnings initially went into making him debt-free. She shared: “He had a lot of debt. I don’t know how. One year has just gone in paying off that debt and telling him, ‘You can’t take loans on interest anymore because whatever I am giving you is going down a well’. So I have cleared all his debts. Now he is building his house. I am trying to get many brands involved so the house can be done for free.”