Saif Ali Khan’s views on nepotism in Bollywood seem to have changed dramatically all of a sudden. “I am totally against nepotism,” the actor told PTI during a recent interview. “I have benefited from it for sure. Definitely, we have more opportunities than people who are not connected to movies.”
In July, at the IIFA awards in New York, actors Saif Ali Khan and Varun Dhawan and filmmaker Karan Johar took a dig at Kangana Ranaut who had called Johar the “flag-bearer of nepotism” when she appeared on his talk show Koffee with Karan. Together, they chanted, “Nepotism rocks!”
The issue escalated quickly and Khan announced that he had apologised to Ranaut for the IIFA episode. Later, he wrote an open letter on the subject published in the DNA newspaper in which he explained his views on whether children of celebrities have an unfair advantage in the Hindi film industry.
“Nepotism is probably least prevalent in the movie industry and rampant in politics and business,” he wrote in the letter and even made a case for biological determinism. “Maybe there is something in the genes too that makes many of Raj Kapoor’s descendants actors or Pataudis cricketers. I think it’s actually eugenics and genetics that’s coming into play.”
On Friday, Khan said. “There are so many people like Shah Rukh Khan who have survived without any conjunctions. For one star kid succeeding there are fifty star kids who are failing.” Khan’s new movie, Chef, will be released on October 6. His daughter, Sara Ali Khan, is currently shooting her film debut Kedarnath with Sushant Singh Rajput.