Karan Johar: I quit Twitter when I started reading abuse about my children | Exclusive

Karan Johar reveals why he quit Twitter when his kids were 5 years old

Karan Johar opened up about how he deals with trauma and negativity during a recent conversation with Mid-day as part of our Sit With Hitlist series. The filmmaker says he often puts up a façade so as to not worry his mother. Another part of solace in his life are his two kids - Yash and Roohi.

Karan tells Mid-day's Mayank Shekhar, "No matter what any troll or negative person says anything about you, you have your children to hold and hug. It's the best therapy in the world. Also for my organization - I felt that if I am crumbling under pressure, how will I lead an organization? There are many motivations that keep you upbeat and alive… I realized that going to a therapist or a psychologist is sometimes essential, because sometimes that medical advice that comes to you from trained professionals does heal your brain."

Was it the therapist who asked Karan to get out of Twitter? "No that was an instinctive decision I made when I started reading abuse to my children. This is the lowest people can get… My children were 5 at the time when I took that decision. I was like, now I am not going back to this platform for anything. Of course, my company is on it, professionally one has to, I realise the importance… But I don't want to be on this platform and I don't want to read anything about my children because that breaks my heart not only as a parent but as a human being," Karan explains.

Karan Johar has also often been the target of the nepotism debate simply because of the people he works with. But that is not something he is apologetic about. "I haven't and I will not apologize for anything. I will cast who I feel is right, if that person happens to be related to somebody in the industry then so be it. Alia is like my first child, I will always love her in public, in person and she will always be part of my life. You can keep saying things and you want eventually that negativity is eating that person up, not me. I am rising above it. I am taking the higher road. And when you take the higher road in life, you cannot change your way of being because of what people say."

The filmmaker also raises a question as to why people are not talking about the non-star kids that his companies work with. "We do the math in our organization. At a given point of time we are working with 800 to 1000 people (between all the companies associated with Dharma). Of those 800 to 1000 people, whose livelihood depends on the work that is given, out of that 98% are not from the industry. Why is this data not talked about? Why are we talking about that one star-kid or one industry kid that is getting an opportunity?"