In the letter, published on DNA, Saif goes on to say that the comments he made on nepotism with Karan Johar and Varan Dhawan were a joke. “It’s not something that I wrote or something I believe in. It was a joke on ourselves, between Varun (Dhawan), Karan (Johar) and me. It was not supposed to be a big deal, but I realised at some point, that it might have offended Kangana (Ranaut). I called her and apologised personally. That should be the end of it. Everybody needs to take a chill pill and back off,” he wrote.

But he is aware of the controversy his comments stirred up. Nepotism has always been a hot topic in Bollywood, and when three industry bigwigs yelled “nepotism rocks” in front of thousands of fans at the 2017 IIFA Awards, they were slammed in the press. Saif wrote about the negative stories published about the issue. “What I can’t seem to understand are some of the media reactions to this. While most people have been sensible, three reporters from the websites BollywoodLife, The Quint and Elle India, made a point of saying that all I did was use big words like eugenics and genetics,” he wrote, referring to a comment he made about how it is possible that members of the Kapoor family join the film business because it is in their genes.