Imran Khan Recalls When He Was Pitted Against Ranbir Kapoor: "He Never Bought Into That Sort Of Thing"

Imran said, "I recall there were a couple of particularly ugly things that would come out"

Imran Khan, who has been talking about his personal and professional lives at great length in various interviews, opened up about the time when he was pitted against Ranbir Kapoor by a section of media. Imran Khan talked about his thoughts on being compared with Ranbir Kapoor in an interview with India Today. Imran Khan said that he talked to Ranbir Kapoor back in the day and both of them didn't give much importance to the on-going conversation. Imran Khan told India Today, "It's unfortunate. And it always leaves a very unpleasant aftertaste because that's never how I viewed it. From my conversations with Ranbir back then, I remember he never bought into that sort of thing, either. My recollection of him is that he took the craft very seriously. He's a cinephile and he was also not engaging in that thing."

Ranbir Kapoor made his debut with Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Saawariya in 2007 and Imran Khan stepped into the film industry with Jaane Tu... Ya Jaane Na just a year later. Various reports back then pitted the two newcomers against each other. Reflecting upon that time, Imran Khan said, "This is just the spicy stuff that they like to talk about in the gossip magazines. I recall there were a couple of particularly ugly things that would come out. And we would always make it a point to kind of reach out and say, 'Hey, listen, aise aise hua hai [this has happened], are we cool?'"

During the same conversation, Imran Khan opened up about the reason behind his divorce from Avantika Malik. Imran said that he was going through depression at that point of time and he realised his marriage was not working. Speaking to India Today, he said, "Without going too much into that part, because I'm hesitant to add a lot of fuel to the gossip fire, but as I was dealing with all of this baggage and my internal struggle, I did find that my marriage and my relationship were not helping any of that."