Shah Rukh Khan ‘lashed’ out when he was told Saif could replace him in Yes Boss: ‘Saif Ali Khan, who?’

Yes Boss producer Ratan Jain recalled how a coversation between him and Shah Rukh Khan led to the Bollywood superstar walking out of his film.

Shah Rukh Khan in Yes Boss.

In the 1990s, Shah Rukh Khan was just beginning to establish himself in the Hindi film industry, and one of his earliest breakthroughs came with Baazigar, produced by Ratan Jain. The film not only put SRK firmly on the map but also marked the beginning of a strong professional association between the actor and the producer. They went on to work together on Yes Boss, Badshah, and Josh, and Jain later co-produced Main Hoon Na. However, there was a moment, just before Yes Boss went into production, when tensions between the two escalated so sharply that Shah Rukh reportedly vowed never to work with Jain again.

Ratan recalled the altercation in a recent conversation with TV9 Bharatvarsh and shared that the incident happened when he, and director Aziz Mirza, were trying to sign SRK for Yes Boss. “Aziz said if Shah Rukh doesn’t want to do the film, we will make it with somebody else. And while talking to Shah Rukh, I ended up saying, ‘If you don’t want to do it, I will make it with Saif.’ That was a huge mistake, I don’t know how it slipped out of my mouth,” Ratan said.

This statement by the producer had a lasting impact on Shah Rukh Khan and he was furious for hours. So much so that he even called up the producer in the middle of the night and expressed his anger. “First, Shah Rukh called Hari Singh, who used to handle my work, and lashed out at him severely. He must have hurled abuses as well. Then he called me and said, ‘You are replacing me with Saif?’ He was angry and asked, ‘Saif, who?’ I explained that it just slipped out of my mouth. But he said, ‘It doesn’t work that way. What’s in your mind, you said it.’ I told him, ‘I can’t take back the words I said, but what’s done is done.’ Then he said, ‘Let’s do one thing: I’ll complete the film I’m doing for you, Baadshah, and after that, we won’t work together.’”

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The producer recalled that Shah Rukh was angry for days but after that, when he met with the actor, he tried to make up, and things eventually worked out between them. “I apologised because I was in the wrong, and I shouldn’t have said that,” he recalled.

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Earlier in the same interview, Ratan Jain also spoke about the casting of another film with Shah Rukh, Josh. He revealed that he had wanted Shah Rukh to play the character Max, but director Mansoor Khan was interested in casting Aamir Khan in the role. “We had decided that Aamir would do the role that was done by Chandra Chur and Shah Rukh would do Max. Mansoor told me that Aamir wanted to play Max. I said, ‘Absolutely not. Only Shah Rukh will do that, or I won’t do the film,’” Ratan said.

On the work front, Shah Rukh Khan will next be seen in King, directed by Siddharth Anand. The movie is slated for a 2026 release.

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