Salman Khan: Viewers smart enough to call out fake ones

Salman Khan

No one knows Bigg Boss better than Salman Khan. The reality show has become as much about the superstar, who has hosted 13 of its 16 seasons so far, as about the contestants and controversies. Which is why it is only fitting that when it came to foraying into digital entertainment, Khan chose to do it with the popular offering. Earlier this month, Bigg Boss OTT season 2 kicked off with Pooja Bhatt, Cyrus Broacha, Aaliya Siddiqui, Bebika Dhurve, Avinash Sachdev and others as contestants, and the widely loved host reprising his role.

So, how does it feel to be an intrinsic part of the reality show for 13 years? As the host, Khan says he has had a ringside view to its evolution over the years. But more importantly, he has keenly noticed how the audience has grown with it. "Bigg Boss has made the audience smart. In the show, it is all about being real - good or bad does not matter, that's for the audience to judge. But to stay on the show, you must be 100 per cent real. The audience enjoys the drama and fights, but is smart enough to call out those who are being fake," says the actor-host.

Making his web debut with Bigg Boss OTT was a no-brainer for Khan. The actor explains that the show is all about entertainment and perfectly aligns with his creative sensibilities. "Our country is always looking for non-stop entertainment. This season will be raw and unfiltered, just like me. The show and I are a perfect case of Ram milaye jodi."

What makes the JioCinema offering different from its previous instalments is that it is a 24-hour live-streaming affair. Unlike its toned-down television counterpart, the OTT version is "unfiltered". At the launch, Khan - who has built a loyal family audience over the decades and is among the few Hindi stars to have a no-kissing on screen clause - had asserted that despite the show's no-holds-barred approach, he will ensure that it follows "our culture". Prod him on the subject, and he says, "I think there should be censorship on the OTT medium. All this vulgarity, nudity, gaali [expletives] should stop. Kids as young as 15-16 years are able to watch it. You have done it all - lovemaking, kissing and exposing in scenes. And when you enter your building, your watchman has also seen your work. The content should be checked. It was way too much before, ab thoda control mein aaya hai [after web platforms have begun classifying their content into age-based groups]. Now, people have started working on good content."