Why did Raveena Tandon reject the web series 'Aarya'?

Raveena Tandon is currently gearing up for the OTT series ‘Karmma Calling’. She made her digital debut with ‘Aranyak’ in 2021 and later became the initial pick for Ram Madhvani’s ‘Aarya’. In a recent interview, she opened up about why she rejected ‘Aarya’. She further revealed that she didn’t take the role from Karan Johar’s ‘Kuch Kuch Hota Hai’.

While talking to a leading media house, Raveena revealed that she found the script of ‘Aarya’ exciting, but she wanted to give her audience something they had never seen from her.

This led her to choose ‘Aranyak’ as her digital debut and she believes that all the awards she won that year were a remarkable payoff for the gamble she made. She added that she approached Ram and Nikhil Madhok from ‘Hotstar’ expressing her interest in doing a project and shared why she couldn’t take ‘Aarya’ then.

Revealing the reason why she turned down ‘Kuch Kuch Hota Hai’, Raveena said that Karan Johar is still not ready to forgive her for rejecting the film. To this day, Karan holds her accountable for not taking the part played by Rani Mukerji in KKHH. She asked him to offer her a different role.

In explaining her decision, Raveena told another top news organisation that Karan still holds a grudge against her for turning down KKHH. However, he failed to grasp her perspective back then. Kajol and Raveena were contemporaries, both starting their careers with lead roles. Taking a smaller role like Rani’s in KKHH wasn’t feasible for her given their equal standing at that time.