The latest episode of Karan Johar’s chat show Koffee With Karan 8 was one for the books. It is not every day that we get to see icons like Zeenat Aman and Neetu Kapoor on chat shows. During the episode, the film veterans recalled “traumatic” headlines printed about them in film magazines in those days. Karan Johar briefly spoke about the presence of stars on social media and the paparazzi culture. Neetu Kapoor intervened and said, “But those days so many articles were there in the magazines.” Zeenat Aman added, “Half of them were made up.”
Karan Johar asked his guests, “Did you get worried what are they going to write? When people wrote headlines. That was the culture that time. To expose relationships.” Neetu Kapoor replied, “It was scary Karan. It was really, really scary.”
Zeenat Aman added, “It was traumatic. Because you know, half the time it was perception and I learnt to detach myself from this weird monster that they had created in their whole saga of what they thought Zeenat Aman was. And headlines were crushing. And really, it was all about selling magazines. And people would talk to me and say things like you are this sex symbol, and I said I wish even 10 percent of this was true, because all I remember was going to the studio and then home.”
Karan Johar then asked Neetu Kapoor, “Is that what you thought Zeenat Aman was doing.” She replied, “I did not know what was going on actually. In the outside world. Maybe they were true, maybe they were not true, I don’t know.”
Zeenat Aman and Neetu Kapoor also mentioned during the episode that they barely partied in those days. Neetu Kapoor recalled, “We would play antakshari, play dumb charades. So that was like one picnic. That was really fun. But I had this Rishi Kapoor as my boyfriend so I never partied. Because he was always like, don’t do this, don’t do that. So, I have never seen that wild side of parties in those days. I was committed and I had a very strict mother and a very strict boyfriend. So I was torn between both of them.”
Zeenat Aman added that she too barely partied for around 7-8 years. “For me, I had a very strict mother. Shooting, home, in bed, in time. Early morning knock on the door, I really did not party at all. For 7-8 years straight. I was on a diet for 7-8 years. My life was studio-home, studio-home but when the floodgates burst, they really did.” Karan Johar asked, “Do you mean that by the men that entered your life?” Zeenat Aman simply replied, “No comment.”
