Karan Johar talks about his struggle with ‘body dysmorphia’ and ‘female voice’: ‘Can’t I be like the other boys?’

Karan Johar recently spoke about his struggle with body dysmorphia and how his “feminine voice” bothers him. He recalled secretly taking voice modulation classes and said he always thought he had failed his parents as a boy by not being the son they should have had.

Karan told Faye D’Souza in a recent chat, “I felt like I failed a lot as a child. I felt like I let my parents down. I felt like I wasn’t the boy they should have had. I was conditioned to believe that because I was effeminate. I was different from all the other boys in my school.”

Recalling a life-changing incident, he said: “There was this talent contest and everyone was performing and I was doing a dance. I could see some people sneering and laughing and my mother was in the audience. I remember going home, closing the door and crying and thinking, ‘Why can’t I be like the other guys?'”

“I was struggling with body image issues and took a public speaking class,” he said, adding, “There was a gentleman there who told me I had a feminine voice and that I was not going to have an easy time in life. He put me on a class where I was supposed to give my voice a sort of baritone. The whole time I was telling my dad that I was going to take computer classes because I didn’t want to tell them that I was going to do that.”

Karan Johar also spoke about his struggle today and said, “I suffer from body dysmorphia. It is very uncomfortable for me to get into a pool. I don’t know how to do that without feeling pathetic. I am really trying to overcome that. I always wear oversized clothes.” He added, “Even in intimate moments, I turn off the lights.”

In the same interview, Karan Johar admitted that he has to fight the urge to say insensitive things to his children Yash and Roohi. The filmmaker admitted that he can see his son gaining more weight than his BMI and that he is “paranoid” about him. Karan noted that he too had weight issues as a child and can see his son getting his genes. While the filmmaker tries to comment on Yash’s weight, he inadvertently shamed him for his obesity during a recent vacation and immediately regretted it.