Filmmaker Karan Johar and Kareena Kapoor had a short fall out in 2002 when the latter asked to be paid the same remuneration as Shah Rukh Khan for the movie "Kal Ho Na Ho".
In his biography "An Unsuitable Boy", Johar reveals, "My first problem was with Kareena. She asked for too much money and we had some kind of a fallout at that time. 'Mujhse Dosti Karoge!' had just released, directed by Kunal Kohli. She said, 'Aditya Chopra's assistant Kunal Kohli has made this flop, so Karan Johar's assistant, Nikhil Advani is not to be trusted either'," The Times of India reported.
He adds, "The weekend of 'Mujhse Dosti Karoge's release, I offered her 'Kal Ho Naa Ho', and she asked for the same money that Shah Rukh Khan was getting. I said, 'Sorry'."
Johar says he was "very hurt" by Kapoor's demand for equal pay, and went on to sign Preity Zinta for the role instead.
Following the incident, Johar and Kapoor didn't speak to each other for several months, and the former recalls it as an "idiotic" phase. "She was a kid; she's a decade younger than me."
Kareena Kapoor/Facebook
However, nine months later, Kapoor called the "My Name is Khan" director on hearing about his father's health.
"We were releasing 'Kal Ho Naa Ho' in November. We had shot the film in June, July, August and in September I had to shoot the songs, make the promos and so on. So, I had to head back, while my father continued the treatment in New York. That was the time Kareena Kapoor called me. It was August. We had not spoken for nine months. She called and said, 'I heard about Yash uncle.' She got really emotional on the phone, and she said, 'I love you and I am so sorry I haven't been in touch. Don't worry'," he writes.
"An Unsuitable Boy", penned by Karan Johar with Poonam Saxena, sees the director open up about his sexual orientation, his fears, his relationships with friends in the industry among other things.
"If I need to spell it out, I won't only because I live in a country where I could possibly be jailed for saying this. Which is why I Karan Johar will not say the three words that possibly everybody knows about me," Johar writes.
On his soured relationship with actor Kajol, Johar states how she "can never come back to my life. I don’t think she wants to either. I never want to have anything to do with them as a unit."