TV Stars

Karan Johar Net Worth 2020, Bio, Age, Height

Karan Johar is one of the most known names in the world of Indian cinematography and media, often named simply Kjo.

He is more well known by this nickname outside of his hometown.

Karan is one of the most prominent Indian actor, director, producer, and screenwriter who is very respected for his talent and versatility and his ability to get the maximum from actors in the movies he directs.

But his talents go even wider since he also proved himself as a very skilled costume designer and an awesome TV host.

Early years

He was born as Rahul Kumar Johar on May 25,  1972, in a very populous city named Bombay, located in one of India’s western states Maharashtra.

He was born in a respectable Indian family with talented parents who were already highly involved in the Indian movie industry. This helped him put himself out there in the media and get interesting roled pretty quick.

His father is a film producer named Yash Johar, who is a very respected movie producer and a founder of his own production company named Dharma Productions.

His mother is named Hiroo Johar and is his great supporter and family holder. He was always closely especially connected to her. He even later named his child after her.

He was a good student at Greenlawn’s High School and after he graduated from it he enrolled in the H.R. College of Commerce and Economics. Both of these educational facilities are located in Bombay.

He didn’t like boarding school and even attempted running away from it during the night because he was homesick. He was caught by watchmen so he was returned to the school.

He is excellent in literature and languages and has gained his master’s degree in French, although he is also a great English speaker.

Career development

He entered the world of movies wanting to become an actor and going on auditions. He is a big fan of Raj Kapoor and Yash Chopra from a very early age.

Johar gained a role in  “Indradhanush” in 1989. It is a children’s semi-fiction series whose name means Rainbow in English. It was produced by Aanand Mahendroo and was aired in 13 episodes. Johar was 17 years old when he starred in it and it was his first connection with television.

In 1995 he got involved in another kind of work in the film industry. He became the assistant director of a movie called Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge which was directed by Aditya Chopra.

The movie received great critics and Karan was considered to be one of the reasons for the film’s success. He said that this became one of the many reasons why he was later contacted for his next roles.

The movie was also a directorial debut of Aditya Chopra which was shot not only in India but also in England and Switzerland.

He had a minor role in this movie and later had small cameo appearances in movies like Om Shanti Om and Luck by Chance.

He directed his movie in 1998. It was a romantic drama movie called Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. The English name for the movie is Something…Something Happens.

The lead roles in the movie were given to Shah Rukh Khan, a major movie star in India and two other famous actors Kajol and Rani Mukerji.

This movie eventually won the National Film Award in the category of Best Popular Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment but also brought him his first award on the position of a movie director. All four lead actors also received a Filmfare Award in the category of Best Actors.

The movie earned ten times more than its budget and gained huge financial benefits to all involved.
In 2001, after a few years of hiatus, he landed his next movie: a family drama named Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham with Amitabh Bachchan, Jaya Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan, and Hrithik Roshan.

This movie also became a blockbuster and Johar was praised for his storytelling. It also brought him a huge financial reward. He was very happy to hear that he was doing fine, especially because he was finally able to pay back to his parents and those who love him the most.

In 2006, he directed a romantic drama movie titled Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna with his favorite actor Shah Rukh Khan, Preity Zinta, Rani Mukerji, and Abhishek Bachchan.

This was his third work and third hit movie and it brought attention to him overseas. In this movie, Johar was the co-writer of the script and it had a huge influence on his directing in a positive sense.

It was the same year that he became the first movie director and producer from India to sit in the jury for the Miss World competition which took place in Poland that year.

He again turned to Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol, and this movie was considered as his best work until that time. It became a major success, earning millions at the box office. He became a winner of the  Filmfare Award in the category of Best Director.

In 2012, Johar decided to direct a movie called Student of the Year but he made a huge change considering the choice of actors. He had decided to hire new actors Sidharth Malhotra, Varun Dhawan, and Alia Bhatt who were all debutants.

This film wasn’t as successful as the ones prior but the movie was considered entertaining. This was his first movie that critics described to have a lack of good plot.

In 2013, he directed a short movie, one of four made for a celebration of the Hindi cinema. The film gained good reviews from movie critics but didn’t do so well at the cinema.

In 2015, he starred in a drama movie called Bombay Velvet, directed by Anurag Kashyap. He received mixed reviews for his acting performance and the movie didn’t do so well in the cinema.

In 2016, he directed a romantic movie called Ae Dil Hai Mushkil. The movie was a huge commercial success with  Ranbir Kapoor and Anushka Sharma in leading roles.

In 2018 he made a follow-up movie for Bombay Talkies which was released on Netflix. This helped him create an even bigger fanbase since there are a lot of people on Netflix and they are mostly young and not familiar with Johar’s work.

His last work is a 2019 Indian action movie which is directed by Tarun Mansukhani but is produced by Hiroo Yash Johar and Karan Johar through their Dharma Productions.

This movie is named Drive and it includes a lot of street racing that was released in June 2019, but it went directly to Netflix in November the same year.

He also produced Kalank the same year, with Madhuri Dixit in a female leading role.  Although he was convinced the movie will be a success it wasn’t as he expected it.

All the movies he directed were produced by Dharma Productions, owned by his father Yash Johar.

His father died in 2004 and Johar took over the company and continued his father’s work. He has also produced a lot of movies under this banner.

The death of his father was not unexpected since he battled with cancer for a long period but still, it was a huge shock for Karan and his mother. His father was his role model and since Karan was an only child and had no siblings, his father adored him. Johar often says that his father pampered him when he was a kid.

“My parents are my Universe” is something that he often said publically and wasn’t ashamed of it. He stated that parents are the only ones who love their kids unconditionally and now when he is a father he knows how that feels.

Johar has a great sense of style and is a favorite costume designer for Shah Rukh Khan. He loves to experiment with his style and says that one of the best things about performances is that he always gets to express himself through what he wears.

He prepared him for his roles in movies like  Dil To Pagal Hai, Mohabbatein and Om Shanti Om.

His TV show called Koffee with Karan brought him wide popularity. The show is based on interviewing members of the film industry so he often appears on TV together with prominent actors, directors, and others.

The show was aired for six seasons, the first one being in 2004 and the last in 2019.

In 2007 Johar received the Indian Television Academy Award in the category for Best Anchor of Talk Show.

His show has won the Award for Best Talk-Chat Show the same year.

He served as a judge on many reality shows like JDikhhla Jaa and a very popular  India’s Got Talent.

Personal life

At the beginning of 2017, a surrogate mother gave birth to his first children, twin boy, and a twin girl. He named his son Yash in memory of his father and his daughter Roohi is an acronym of his mother’s name Hiroo.

The children were born through a surrogate mother and everybody can see that they are the most important thing in Johar’s life. He often shares their photos on his Instagram channel. He is very connected with them and says that their support is very important to him.

He has almost ten million followers on his Instagram channel where he regularly posts and communicates with fans. This helps him create a much stronger connection with them and therefore he continues to do it.

In the book titled “An Unsuitable boy” which was launched by his best friend Shah Rukh Khan. It was published in 2017 and has discovered some interesting things about Karan and his private life.

It also rose a lot of controversy due to things revealed in it. The biggest thing he did through this book was to come out of the closet. Although he never hid his sexual orientation he also never confirmed it in public until this book.

Johar shared his feelings regarding his problem of being a homosexual person in India. He spoke about hundreds of hate posts he receives daily because of it.

He also shared how he wasn’t speaking with Kareena Kapoor for over a year. The reason for it lies in the movie Johar was going to film and she demanded to be paid the same amount of money as Shah Rukh Khan. He got angry and refused to do it and even hired another actress, Priety Zinta for the role. That is how they stopped their communication.

He also spoke about the friendship with Kajol which broke up after 25 years. It ended when she stood on her husband’s side when Karan was accused of bribing a critic to write an article against her husband’s movie.

Karan could not believe that she would think that he would do something like that after 25 years of friendship. He considered her a lucky charm since his movies with her were always blockbusters.

He stated that he always knew her husband has a problem with their friendship and although it is clear that it is not jealousy it is strong. He says that he is not the best guy when it comes to relationships and it took him quite long to figure out who he can believe and who is not on his side

He shared a lot of his intimate history in relationships, even the one that he had lost his virginity when he was 26 years old, in New York. He paid for a prostitute and said it was a very fake sexual intercourse since he was nervous and the person who was hired to do it was doing it for the money.

Johar stuttered at school and received help for it (including coaching him to have less feminine movements) so he later became one of the best students in debate class.

He remembers how he was bullied at school because he was too feminine and how he gained a nickname Pansy.

He was very hurt with insinuations that he was in a relationship with his best friend Shah Rukh Khan. He was both sad and angry about it since he considers Shah to be his older brother.

In 2019 he was involved in a huge controversy regarding one of his parties. He posted a video from the party but later deleted it after he was attacked that a lot of his guests look drugged. Some of the guests were Deepika Padukone, Shahid Kapoor and more.

All of the persons involved denied the accusations and Johar himself did the same. Even some politicians spoke publically about this event.

As for his love life, there were a lot of rumors regarding his partners but none were ever confirmed.

Early in 2007, he was rumored to be married to a TV host Ekta Kapoor but they eventually stayed friends.

In 2011 he was mentioned to be dating Vandana Melwani but it was only a rumor. She is his good female friend from America but it turned out to be an April joke of an Indian magazine.

The designer Manish Malhotra is Karan’s close friend but was also often put in the position of his romantic partner by media. This is something that often goes viral, especially in India, and it’s an interesting thing because they always say it isn’t true.

In 2019 he was often mentioned together with Prabal Gurung, an American fashion designer but Prabal Gurung clarified that their relationship was always like brothers.

Shah Rukh Khan is another name that was often rumored to be in a relationship with Karan but it seems that they are only best friends.

Quick summary

Full name: Rahul Kumar Johar

Date of birth: May 25,  1972

Birthplace: Bombay, Maharashtra, India

Age: 57

Profession: actor, director, producer, costume designer, TV host, screenwriter

Height: 1, 75 m

Weight: 74 kg

Net Worth: $100 million

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