In a recent candid interview, Esha Gupta opened up about an encounter with director Sajid Khan during the filming of the 2014 comedy Humshakals. She revealed that he verbally abused her on set, and in the heat of the moment, she abused him in response before storming off. Gupta recounted how the pressure of the shoot escalated, leading Khan to use abusive language at her, which ultimately prompted producer Vashu Bhagnani to intervene and apologise to her. Notably, Khan has been under scrutiny after several women made concerning allegations against him.
Humshakals, which Khan co-wrote and directed featured Saif Ali Khan, Riteish Deshmukh and Ram Kapoor in a triple-role comedy where Esha Gupta played one of the female leads along with Bipasha Basu and Tamannah Bhatia. The film became notorious for its poor reviews and was widely labeled one of 2014’s worst films. Bipasha Basu had called the film the worst experience of her life, while Saif had referred to doing the film as a mistake.
Speaking about the incident when Khan abused her, Gupta said: “I don’t like people abusing me. Unhone mujhe gaali di, maine bhi di [He verbally abused me and so did I]. Kuch log soch te nahi hain, frustrated hote hain [Some people don’t think because they are frustrated]. He was frustrated for a lot of reasons. Humne promote phir achhe se kiya [Later on, we did promote the film wee].
It got okay, but you don’t feel the same love and admiration for the person. Log apni izzat apne aap hi gawa dete hain [People sometimes voluntarily lose do things that lose respect]. I walked out of the set and went home. I sat in the car in the same clothes and went. I did not stay. I was cordial enough, ki humari film achhi jaye [I was cordial hoping that it will help the film do well]. Lekin jab humne screening pe film dekhi, Ram ke bharose bhi nahi chhod sakte film [But when we saw the film during the screening, even Lord Ram would not have been able to save the film.]”
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