Rakhi Sawant Fan Website

In a shocking display of star snobbery, none of Karan Johar’s friends allegedly agreed to appear on his popular talk show in an episode where item girl Rakhi Sawant played guest.

Compared to Rakhi, B-grade actress Mallika Sherawat was lucky to have a high-profile director like Sanjay Leela Bhansali agree to appear with her on ‘Koffee With Karan’, a weekly chat show on Star World and Star One, said a source.

The source told IANS: ‘Karan tried to convince a number of guests, but he failed. He had no choice but to request two of Rakhi’s colleagues from ‘Bigg Boss’ (Sony TV’s reality show), Carol Gracias and Rahul Roy, to join her on the show.’

Johar recently managed some of the most difficult combinations of guests, trying to beat shoot deadlines even while attending the prenuptial celebrations of the Aishwarya Rai-Abhishek Bachchan wedding.

The toughest job for him was to bring all the Kapoors together.

‘Karan got the three Kapoor brothers Randhir, Rishi and Rajiv, sister Reema and Neetu Singh together on the same show. Only Raj Kapoor’s elder daughter Ritu Nanda (Shweta Bachchan’s mother-in-law) was missing,’ said the source.

In another episode, TV heavyweight Ektaa Kapoor appears with three of her blue-eyed boys from Balaji Telefilms - Ronit Roy, Hiten Tejwani and Ram Kapoor.

Then, in what promises to be one of Johar’s favourite tete-a-tetes, he chats up the 1990s matinee idol Madhuri Dixit.

‘Everyone knows Karan is a huge Madhuri fan. He was a kind of assistant during ‘Dil To Pagal Hai’ and adores Madhuri since then. At the end of the show, Karan calls Rani Mukherji on, who is also a huge Madhuri fan.’

The last episode for the season was recorded a few days ago. It brings together Shilpa Shetty and her sister Shamita Shetty and even ropes in their mother towards the end.

That brings the curtain down on this season of ‘Koffee With Karan’. It’s unlikely that Karan will be back with a third season since he’s now part of NDTV’s new entertainment channel, NDTV Imagine.

Said the source: ‘Though the brand ‘Koffee With Karan’ remains with STAR, what’s the brand worth without Karan?’