When Shah Rukh Khan Was Arrested for Threatening a Journalist With a Knife & Nana Patekar Bailed Him Out

Earlier in his career, the media and the film industry as a whole were reported to have been very unfriendly towards Shah Rukh Khan. This was mainly because of his position as an outsider and his fast rising popularity that started to create some form of challenge to the status quo. At that period, he was reported in a lot of media with false or sensational news about him. Shah Rukh Khan, at THiNK 2012, recounted a shocking-or-humorous story of one of such moments in this interview. He wrote about how a false news in a film magazine turned out of proportion and later he was arrested.

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He remembered that the whole incident began when a story was published in a magazine that he had an affair with a female actor. This was very distasteful to him because he had only recently gotten married. “She (Gauri) was so worried about what I’d be doing, what supposedly film stars do apart from acting — and then this whole thing came up. And it wasn’t true at all. So I called up the lady (journalist) and asked, ‘Why have you written this?’ She said, ‘But Shah Rukh, it’s a joke.’ But I said, ‘It’s not funny. Do you hear me laughing?’ And I wasn’t actually saying it like that way I’m telling you now. I was more like the Delhi guy in me, where it was like: ‘Tujhe hansi aa rahi hai? Main hass raha hoon?’ [You’re laughing? Do I look like I’m laughing?]”

He went on to describe how things spiralled out of control: "And I said, ‘Tum wahin ruko, main aata hoon, dekhta hoon tumko’ [You stay right there, I’m coming to see you], and I went there. I fought, I beat up people, I did really nasty stuff, which, naturally, Delhiites do. They don’t know that in other parts of the country, this is considered nasty. So I behaved really badly.”

Then he remembered attending the magazine office with a khukhri (knife) and rushed towards the magazine office. “I remember that young boy — he was sitting there in his shorts — and the whole office was sitting there. And it was a kukri knife, not even a sword. So I took that and struck between his legs,” he shared and continued, “And I don’t know why, now, when I think of it, and I looked at his parents and said, ‘I’m going to cut him up,’ and they didn’t understand anything.”

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Then it struck Shah Rukh that he was summoned by the cops a few minutes later, and he was arrested. Rather than dialing a lawyer or a loved one, he dialed the journalist who did the story and warned him: “They took me after 6 o’clock, so that I couldn’t get bail.” In the lock-up, SRK was told he had the right to make one phone call, and he called up the same guy. “That’s when I realised I’m cut out to be a Hindi film hero.” Instead of calling a lawyer or loved one, he rang the journalist responsible for the story and warned him: “Ab toh main jail bhi chala gaya hoon, aur ab nikal ke aaunga aur kaat ke hi jaunga.” (Now that I’ve gone to jail, when I get out, I’ll slash you for sure.)

Shah Rukh credited Nana Patekar for getting him bailed out. “Nana Patekar got me out of jail, finally, and he was very sweet. On weekends, there’s an evening court that grants bail or something. I tried to be decent, and I have kind of changed now.”

The incident also caused Pooja Samant, a senior journalist, to remember her first encounter with Shah Rukh Khan, when he was noticeably agitated with a magazine that she happened to be a part of. She told her that he had had a huge argument with the editor concerning negative coverage.

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