Amused Karan Johar explains why he unfollowed Shah Rukh Khan and half of Bollywood overnight as fans speculate

Instagram unfollows are basically Bollywood’s version of a fire alarm, so when Karan Johar hit the unfollow button on Alia Bhatt, Shah Rukh Khan, Kajol and half of his inner circle, fans panicked. Relationship fallout? Industry cold war? Group chat drama?

KJo, however, would like everyone to collectively relax.

The filmmaker jumped onto Instagram Stories on Thursday night to clear the air, insisting the mass unfollow spree had nothing to do with broken friendships and everything to do with a much-needed “digital detox”. “It’s a DIGITAL DETOX!!!! Am unfollowing everyone to reduce my time and energy spent on the gram!!! This can’t be national news for gods sake… please clickbait something else! This is irrelevant! (sic),” he wrote, sounding exasperated and amused.

The internet, of course, had already noticed that Karan’s following list had shrunk dramatically to just 78 accounts despite his 17 million-plus followers. Missing from the list: Big Bollywood names including his closest friend Shah Rukh Khan, Alia Bhatt, Kareena Kapoor Khan, Kajol, Varun Dhawan, Sidharth Malhotra, Malaika Arora and Ananya Panday.

Even Kartik Aaryan didn’t escape the cleanse, awkward timing considering he’s headlining Karan Johar’s upcoming production Naagzilla.

Fans later pointed out that KJo is currently not following any Bollywood actor at all. The only familiar names still surviving the great Instagram purge are Dharma CEO Apoorva Mehta, business associate Adar Poonawalla and Priyanka Chopra.

So no, it’s apparently not a feud. Just Karan Johar versus screen time. And if it helps, the star just celebrated his 54th birthday, where half of Bollywood descended, including Manish Malhotra, Kareena Kapoor Khan, Karisma Kapoor, Rani Mukerji, Sidharth Malhotra and Kiara Advani.