Reddit agrees with Suniel Shetty’s take on Hardik Pandya’s Koffee With Karan controversy: ‘Karan Johar egged him on’

A few years after cricketers KL Rahul and Hardik Pandya’s Koffee With Karan episode created an uproar on social media, Suniel Shetty who is KL Rahul’s father-in-law recently commented on the controversy. The actor said that Hardik may have gotten ‘carried away’, but the anchor of the celebrity chat show, Karan Johar, kept pushing him. Suniel said the format of Koffee With Karan is such that ‘kids get excited and they say stuff’. Now, Reddit is reacting to Suniel’s latest statement. Also read: Hardik Pandya, KL Rahul episode of Koffee With Karan pulled down as cricketers face heat

After their Koffee With Karan episode during the Karan Johar-hosted show’s sixth season in 2019, some of the comments made by the cricketers were seen as ‘sexist’. Despite an apology to fans and their own teammates, they were suspended by the BCCI and ousted from a three-match ODI series against Australia. The duo was later fined ₹20 lakh each by the BCCI. Filmmaker Karan Johar at the time had also said that he felt ‘very responsible’ about the repercussions that the cricketers had to face.

“You know when that interview of him (KL Rahul) and Hardik (Pandya) came… Hardik probably got carried away. But when you have an anchor (Karan Johar) shoving it down your throat, what do you do? So it is the format of the show (Koffee With Karan), you get kids excited and they say stuff and then Bollywood is being banned,” Suniel told Ranveer Allahbadia on his podcast The Ranveer Show.

The actor further said, “So I think we all, you as an anchor, me as a guest, we all need to be responsible because if you ask me a question that I feel I can’t answer doesn’t mean (I should feel) that I am inferior to anybody. When that happens, that’s when things go wrong, and it should never go wrong. You should have the guts to say things as they are and as they should be.”

The video of Suniel talking about Koffee With Karan and Karan Johar as a host was recently shared on Reddit by Bolly Blinds N Gossip, and many seemed to agree with his take. One person wrote, “KL Rahul didn’t say anything bad, did he? They weren’t exactly ‘kids’, when they went on the show, but I agree with Suniel’s last point that everyone – anchor and the guests – should be responsible about what they say.” Another comment read, “KL Rahul was pretty much in the wrong place at the wrong time. Didn’t deserve the backlash. It was Hardik being inappropriate, and Karan egging him on.”

A person also wrote, “The whole point of going on KWK (Koffee With Karan) is to give spicy answers and get talked about, otherwise don’t go on the show or don’t answer. You can say ‘no comments’ and not get any backlash. I also never understood why any of these guys need to be on KWK…”