In the 'Sunday Ka Vaar' episode of Bigg Boss OTT, host Karan Johar called out Raqesh Bapat’s ‘sexist’ remark during the nomination task discussion. The incident occurred a few days back, when Raqesh and Nishant, who were saved from nominations, were given the power to hand out disadvantages to two nominated contestants during an immunity task. Shamita Shetty, Pratik Sehajpal, Neha Bhasin, Divya Agarwal and Moose Jattana were nominated this week. During the discussion, Raqesh reportedly said that Pratik should be given the disadvantage as “women are not stronger than men in terms of strength”. This statement of Raqesh infuriated Moose and Pratik, who called him 'sexist'.
Karan also expressed his objection and asked for an explanation. Raqesh told Karan that he was only referring to physical strength and didn't mean anything else. However, Karan refused to buy this and said, “I am very sorry to say but the remark was sexist. Let me tell you this, if push comes to shove Shamita (Shetty) can kick your a** and Neha(Bhasin) can also kick your a** and Divya(Agarwal) can kick everybody’s a**.”
Karan said that we live in the 21st century, and these kind of comments cannot be tolerated.
Raqesh attempted to explain by saying, ”I did not mean to hurt anyone. I live in a house full of women and I know what strength is and where it comes from.”
Karan added that he wants Raqesh to learn a lesson from this. “I don’t want to be a part of the cancel culture. A number of men have told me that I am not a man enough, and believe me these things are hurtful. However, I don’t want to cancel those men. I want to make you (Raqesh) understand through this show that this is wrong”.
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)