Credits: X
Indian wicketkeeper batter KL Rahul opened up on the controversy that took place in the famous chat show Koffee With Karan, hosted by Bollywood director and producer Karan Johar. In 2019, KL Rahul and his teammate Hardik Pandya appeared in one of the episodes of the chat show and ended up sparking nationwide outrage. Rahul and Pandya’s comments on the show resulted in their suspension ahead of the Australia series.
The cricketer recently appeared on Nikhil Kamath’s podcast and revealed that the incident scarred him massively and ended up changing him. Rahul, who leads Lucknow Super Giants in the IPL said, "The interview was a different world. That changed me. Completely changed me. I was a very shy, soft-spoken boy growing up. Then I played for India and became very confident, I had no problem being in a huge group of people. People will know I have been in a room of 100 people because I would talk to everyone.”
He added, "Now I don't (do that) because that interview scared me massively. Getting suspended from the team. I have never been suspended in school, I have never been punished in school. All this never happened to me. I didn't know how to handle it.” Notably, the backlash that KWK episode received was so severe that it had to be taken down from the streaming platform.
During the episode, Hardik made brash comments about women and even went on to boast about his sexual encounters, which eventually labelled him ‘misogynist’ and ‘sexist’.
