Now, Shah Rukh Khan loses best friend Karan Johar to Salman Khan camp?

(FILE) Bollywood filmmaker Karan Johar (L) with actor Shah Rukh Khan (R) at a press conference during the promotion of their film 'My Name Is Khan'. (REUTERS)

Published Friday, January 04, 2013

By Nitya Shah

Although the two B-town friends have remained tight-lipped about their rumoured fall-out, Karan Johar’s decision to skip one-time-best-bud Shah Rukh Khan’s New Year bash in Dubai shows that all’s not well between them.

According to our sources, Karan turned down SRK’s New Year’s eve dinner invite at his Palm Jumeriah residence.

“It was strange because he was in Dubai, but still didn’t go for SRK’s party,” the source added.

In fact, it’s almost traditional for the best-friends to spend every New Year’s eve together in Dubai, but this year proved to be an exception.

“For years they have ushered in the New Year together in Dubai. You can say, the tradition was broken for the first time.”

Emirates 24|7 had earlier confirmed that the two stars were in Dubai for the New Year celebration, but initial tweets suggested that the two were going to celebrate together.

The low-key dinner bash was attended by few of SRK’s Bollywood pals like Boney Kapoor, Sridevi, Chunkey Pandey and wife Bhavna, and Sanjay and Maheep Kapoor.

Karan, who flew into Dubai with his designer pal Manish Malhotra, decided to skip the party.

Despite a rift in their friendship emerging after Karan publicly lashed out SRK’s rumoured girlfriend Priyanka Chopra, the filmmaker has maintained that he’s still very close to King Khan.

“SRK, Gauri and I are one unit,” he insisted.

In fact, there are even talks of how Karan’s bonding with Salman Khan might have further irked SRK.

All eyes are now on the casting of Karan’s next movie. Many claim that he might cast Salman instead of Shah Rukh, and this, industry insiders know will only mean the end of their friendship.

Earlier, SRK had a fall-out with one-time best friend Farah Khan, after she decided to cast Akshay Kumar instead of him in her film ‘Tees Maar Khan’.

The fight turned nasty, after SRK punched her husband (and filmmaker) Shirish Kunder at a private bash. “The peace deal has been drawn since then, but you don’t know when things will go wrong again,” speculates an insider.

The Shah Rukh Khan camp has been slowly shrinking, with his once-close-pals shifting allegiance with his foe Salman.

Arjun Rampal also parted ways with SRK over cuts made to his part in ‘Ra.One’.

Even Hrithik Roshan has been cold-shouldering the King Khan at few public events, sparking fresh theories of another friendship gone bad.

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