When Amitabh Bachchan started hosting Kaun Banega Crorepati in 2000, he was one of the first movie stars to take up a television gig. At the time, naysayers found it beneath the actor to host a television show, but for Bachchan, it was not a choice but a necessity. Amitabh's decision did not have many supporters at the time, and his wife Jaya did not want him to do KBC. In a chat with Abu Jani and Sandeep Khosla during their 2008 chat show The First Ladies, Jaya was asked about Bachchan's time in television and how KBC changed their fortune. Jaya said, "Can you imagine I never wanted him to do it?" When asked why, she said that she "just somehow felt that it was somewhere not correct to shrink him into the small screen." In 2021, Amitabh Bachchan hosted the 1000th episode of Kaun Banega Crorepati. During this episode, the actor had opened up about the circumstances that led him to take up the show. He shared emotionally, "Darasal, ikkis saal ho gaye hain. San 2000 mein iski shuruat hui thi. Aur uss samay humko pata nahi tha, sab log keh rahe they ke aap film se television mein jaa rahe hain, bade parde se chhote parde par aa rahe hain, aapki image ko nuksaan hoga. Lekin humari apni kuch paristhitiyan aisi thi ke mujhe laga ke… Filmon mein kaam jo hai woh mil nahi raha tha, lekin pehle broadcast ke baad jiss tarah ke reaction aane shuru hue, phir aisa laga ke puri duniya mil gayi hai (It has been 21 years since we began the show in 2000. At that time, I had no idea what would happen. People would warn me that moving from the big screen to the small screen would harm my career. But circumstances compelled me to take this on. You see, I wasn't getting any films at that time, but after the show premiered, the kind of reactions I received made me believe that the world was with me)." Amitabh's career was going through a rough patch at the time and his business venture ABCL had left him in massive debt. Before signing the show, Amitabh Bachchan was flown to London to watch the taping of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?. "Once he saw it, he decided to do KBC with one rider - that we replicate the conditions and discipline of that show," Siddhartha Basu previously shared with indianexpress.com.
