The 18th season of Bigg Boss concluded over the weekend with Karanveer Mehra emerging as a winner. But the finale was also marred by speculation about Salman turning up late to the set, which caused Akshay Kumar, who was supposed to shoot a segment with him, to leave. Akshay was supposed to promote his upcoming film Sky Force with co-star Veer Pahariya. After Akshay left, Veer shot the promotional segment with Salman alone. Earlier reports suggested that Salman was late by several hours, but Akshay revealed more details about the episode at a recent press conference in New Delhi. He said that he had prior commitments, because of which he had to leave.
When asked about Salman’s tardiness leading to his appearance on the show being cancelled, Akshay told the gathered media, “He was not that late. I had reached, yeah. He came a little bit late because he had some personal work. And then we spoke about it, and he told me that he was late about 35 to 40 minutes. And what happened that I had to leave. So then we spoke about it, and I left, but Veer was there, so he shot with him.”
Akshay has a reputation for being punctual, while several of Salman’s past collaborators have mentioned that he’s rarely on time. Filmmaker Anees Bazmee, who has worked with them both, told Lehren Retro in an interview, “Akshay is a very punctual man. We are always worried when working with him because if he says that we’ll start working at 7 am, then he will be there at 7 am. And we are not used to waking up at 6-7 am… Sometimes, we are too relaxed with Salman bhai because he will show up at around 1 pm, will have lunch but then he will stay until the end of the day.”
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According to a Hindustan Times source, “Being as punctual as he is, Akshay turned up on the set for his shoot at the scheduled time, around 2:15 PM. But Salman hadn’t come by then. Akshay waited for an hour for Salman to come, but he had a trial screening of Jolly LLB 3 on his schedule. Thus, after waiting for an hour, Akshay returned without even shooting for the show.”
Directed by Sandeep Kewlani and Abhishek Kapur, the historical war drama Sky Force is produced by Dinesh Vijan, Jyoti Deshpande, and Amar Kaushik. Sky Force is based on India’s retaliatory attack on Pakistan’s Sargodha airbase in the Indo-Pakistani air war in 1965. The movie also stars Sara Ali Khan and Nimrat Kaur in pivotal roles, and will be released on Friday.
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