Koffee With Karan Season 8 Episode 5 featuring host Karan Johar’s ‘ex-students’ – Sidharth Malhotra and Varun Dhawan – had the vibe of a ‘kitty party’ and was peppered with past Koffee couch memories, with constant references to their earlier outings. ‘The Kens without their Barbies’ — in Karan Johar’s words — Sidharth and Varun were mostly focused on talking about how they excelled in their new roles as husbands. Here are the highlights of Episode 5 of the Disney+Hotstar celebrity chat show.

The other student – Alia Bhatt

Alia Bhatt, who had debuted with the Karan Johar directorial Student of the Year, dropped a video message for her first co-actors Sidharth and Varun. Alia mentioned that Varun says banana in a certain way, begins a conversation on the phone with an elderly lady in his family with ‘paeri pona’ and is ‘very competitive’ with her.

Sidharth, Alia said, was a ‘great’ singer who doesn’t party at all and had once slept off at his own birthday party. Karan and Sidharth exchanged confused glances when Alia praised the latter for his singing abilities for a second time. Alia thanked Sidharth for presenting her with the ‘first love’ of her life, Edward, the cat. And with her newly acquired ‘wisdom’, she advised the boys to not be too controversial.

After the video, Sidharth and Varun chorused that the trio rooted for each other professionally and personally. Karan chipped in that neither of them had any faith in Alia’s capabilities when they saw her for the first time and didn’t want her to be a part of Student of the Year.

Sidharth and Varun on marriage and friendship

Varun was on his guard from the word go and in constant fear of backlash for saying anything controversial. At the start of the episode, he requested his mentor to keep him out of matters that could get him in trouble and that a few producers had indeed asked him to mind what he said on the show.

Referring to an old statement about his aversion towards marrying someone from the film business, Varun said it was very immature of him to say so and that he was heavily reprimanded by senior actors for this comment. Varun married his school friend Natasha Dalal in 2021.

On the other hand, after living on his own for 16 years in Mumbai, Sidharth is loving his role of a husband and taking care of his wife, actress Kiara Advani. ‘She motivates me to work harder,’ said the Shershaah actor, adding that both Kiara and he are family-oriented people. Varun, on his part, added that he gets along very well with his wife Natasha’s mother. Varun also shared that his family — especially his elder brother Rohit Dhawan — is very fond of Sidharth.

Karan Johar – only saving grace in the snoozefest

With his guests being very tight-lipped this season, host Karan has been spicing up the show by sharing snippets from his personal life. The show is mostly coming alive when he answers questions asked by his guests, rather than trying to make them talk. For instance, on what he would do to make Salman Khan do a film with Dharma Productions, Karan promptly replied: ‘Beg, borrow, steal.’ Asked to name his three best friends, Karan mentioned Shah Rukh Khan and Aditya Chopra but failed to come up with a third name.

Varun Dhawan’s faux pas

Discussing Karan’s producer friends, Varun mispronounced the Academy Award-winning Guneet Monga’s surname as Mongia. And when Karan almost choked laughing, Varun said he thought Karan might be having ‘conjunctivitis’.

After trying to safeguard his image as an ideal husband throughout the episode, Varun admitted to ‘stalking’ Aisha Sharma — actress Neha Sharma’s sister — on Instagram (he had mentioned Aisha in the last season as well). We loved Karan’s long stare right after that confession.

Game plan

Sidharth graciously admitted that he had a crush on Katrina Kaif as he has genuine admiration for the person she is. Asked whether Varun has the best body, he replied with a straight face that it’s all made in VFX studios. And who are the two people Sidharth would pick for a trip? Aditya Roy Kapoor and Vicky Kaushal.

We also got to know that Shah Rukh Khan is Sidharth’s go-to person for a chat on acting and when he needs a good laugh, he reaches out to Akshay Kumar.