Kamaal Rashid Khan: The original Bollywood troll

In 2009, he moved into the Bigg Boss 3 house as one of its contestants. Though the actor-producer might have come across as a perfect participant given the nature of the show, he was expelled for his volatile behaviour – he threw a bottle at a fellow contestant and threatened to beat him up.

Over the years, he fashioned himself as a movie critic and, later, a trade analyst. He joined Twitter in February 2010 and launched his YouTube channel on May 25, 2013. These platforms became his vehicles to share his mostly scathing reviews. He declared most of the upcoming releases “a disaster” much before their theatrical run; ridiculed the actors who featured in them, including making personal attacks. He has claimed to be more popular than Shah Rukh Khan, who he claims is his main “competitor”. He has referred to Salman Khan as a “2-Rs-Actor” (a literal translation of the Hindi expression do kaudi) and attacked the Bajrangi Bhaijaan (2015) actor for “not knowing how to act”. Over the years, he has targeted Karan Johar, Ranbir Kapoor, Varun Dhawan, Arjun Kapoor and Ranveer Singh, among others. Recently, he called Akshay Kumar a “dhongi (imposter)”. He referred to the Liger actor as “Vijay Anakonda” instead of Deverakonda, apart from attacking his movie. He posted several videos trashing Aamir Khan’s latest release Laal Singh Chaddha before its release. Similarly, he declared Ek Villain Returns and Jugjugg Jeeyo flops before their theatrical runs. Of late, he has been targeting other public figures, including cricketers and has blamed actor Anushka Sharma for her husband, cricketer Virat Kohli’s depression.

The industry mostly chooses to ignore his no-filter comments but KRK’s videos have a huge following. He has 5.1 million followers on Twitter, his YouTube channel has 1.11 million subscribers and he is followed by 114k people on Instagram.

There have been several occasions when the industry has shot back. Actor Manoj Bajpayee filed a defamation complaint when KRK called him a “ganjedi” (a marijuana addict). Salman Khan, too, filed a defamation complaint for calling him and Salman Khan Films “dacoits”. KRK deleted these tweets following the complaints. Ajay Devgn called him out for making a fabricated claim while actress Sunny Leone filed an FIR against him for falsely alleging that she had said that “rape is not a crime”.