Shah Rukh Khan was short-tempered, couldn’t tolerate criticism: Veteran journalist recalls how SRK ‘jumped on an editor’

Veteran journalist recalls Shah Rukh Khan's early day in the industry and describes him as a loose cannon who couldn't bear the media writing bad things about him.

Journalist recalls Shah Rukh Khan losing his temper over negative reviews by the media. (Photo: Express Archive)

Actor Shah Rukh Khan has been around since the early 90s when he made his debut with the 1992 film Deewana. He has had a career spanning over three decades, which means that there are nearly thousands of stories and anecdotes about him. Despite the massive love he gets today, there was a time when he was young man in Mumbai, bent on making his name and didn’t take kindly to criticism. A veteran journalist recalled how Shah Rukh Khan, 60, wasn’t the calm and composed individual we see now but a short-tempered young actor.

While appearing on Zahra Jani’s podcast, Pooja Samant was asked about whether the story of Shah Rukh getting mad with her held any water. The journalist replied in the affirmative and said, “Shah Rukh is a very darling human being who is also very charming, as we all know. But during his early days, he was actually very short-tempered. He was never able to digest the fact that some media outlet was writing against him. He wanted people to write good things about him. The editor of our magazine wrote about Shah Rukh’s aggressive way of talking, his whole Delhi style, and about some of his films which did not do very well.”

ALSO READ: Ahaan Panday says Saiyaara co-star Aneet Padda ‘not my girlfriend’ after Karan Johar hints at their real-life romance

Samant added that SRK didn’t like her magazines’ critique of him and that he made this very clear when she tried to interview him during the shooting of Baazigar (1993). She said, “I had gone to the Baazigar set at Filmistaan to get an interview. They were shooting the song ‘Yeh Kaali Kaali Aankhein’, and during the break I went to his makeup room, and I introduced myself. As soon as I told him the name of the magazine I used to work for, he got annoyed. He didn’t want to give an interview to someone who worked for a magazine that wrote such negative things about him.”

Shah Rukh Khan in Baazigar, alongside Kajol and Shilpa Shetty. (Photo: Express Archive)

She continued and said, “He looked at me and said, ‘Acha hua tu agayi aaj saamne. Tum logon ki himmat kaise huyi mere baare mai aisa likhne ki?’ (It’s good you showed your face. How dare you publish such stuff about me? He said that if I wanted an interview, I’d have to get my editor to come and meet him. I called the office, and my editor agreed to come. Upon seeing him, Shah Rukh jumped at him, but my editor stayed calm.”

Taken aback by the whole thing, Samant admitted that things got better eventually and even mentioned an incident that happened years later, which proved that Shah Rukh had put everything behind him. “Things got sorted out at that point, and I remember that many years later I went to Red Chillies’ office. Shah Rukh was sitting in a room above when he saw me. He came down, hugged me and asked me how I was doing. He was lovely,” said Samant.

Click here to follow Screen Digital on YouTube and stay updated with the latest from the world of cinema.