Why? Because he’s Salman Khan and he can.
For the uninitiated and those hiding under a rock at the bottom of a Guatemala, (Honestly, you might want to go back there. The humans of this planet have nothing of value to offer) Salman Khan recently shot into social media infamy after an interview where he commented that his training sessions made him feel like a ‘raped woman’ because he could barely walkout.
And well, we are surprised that people are even surprised. It’s not the first time that Salman Khan deemed it fit to shoot off his mouth without regard for the consequences, and it certainly won’t be the last time. Need proof?
An excerpt from Mayank Shekhar’s blog described how things went down between Salman Khan and a female reporter who’d been sent to interview him:
“I’d just heard about how filmstar Salman Khan had insisted he drop a journalist back home after a long interview. She didn’t particularly fancy a chivalrous ride. But he wouldn’t take no for an answer. He’s a bit of a brat like that. She gave up. He insisted on driving her right up to her building’s gate, asked her to specifically point out the floor she stayed in. ‘Now I know where you live,’ he told her. Sweetly. ‘The interview I just gave you? Don’t publish it.’ By all accounts, the piece never saw the colour of print.”
For purposes of context, here’s the full quote: “Honestly, log pitenge mujhe iskke baad, I sleep during my own films. At all my screenings, I end up falling asleep. And this also means that I fall asleep in others’ films too.”
Because that makes it okay. Dozing off during others’ screenings and your own. The same movies that incidentally contribute to a major chunk of his net worth. Just putting it out there.
When asked if he wanted to make his Hollywood debut, Salman bluntly confessed, “I’ll have to establish respect again, and when I’m already receiving so much respect here, then why? We work for respect, it’s taken so many years to earn respect here, so I don’t see any point.
This charming statement came after he spotted Katrina’s face on a packet of crackers and chided Kapil Sharma for having her face around by saying, “She is of no use to you and she was of no use to me.”
All of this coming from a superstar whom we’ve built with our adulation, whose ego we’ve stoked, whose 100-crore movies we’ve wittingly or unwittingly contributed to at some point in our lives. If he considers himself on a pedestal, it’s because we’ve put him there.
That Salman Khan thought a ‘raped woman’ analogy was an absolutely accurate description of his training sessions is on him. The fact that he routinely makes such statements and gets away with it? That’s on us.