Salman Khan’s shirtless, makeup-free response to trolls on Bigg Boss 20 was more than a television moment. It reopened the debate over why celebrities are expected to remain camera-perfect as they age.
Noida : There was something almost ironic about Salman Khan’s response to body-shamers during the latest Weekend Ka Vaar episode of Bigg Boss 20. To tell people to stop judging his appearance, he did the one thing guaranteed to draw even more attention to it: he took off his T-shirt.
Salman had been speaking about the comments that now routinely follow photographs and videos of him — that he has grown old, put on weight or no longer looks the way he once did. Then he removed his hat, jacket and T-shirt. He even wiped off his makeup. “Come on, troll me now,” he challenged, making no attempt to pretend that his body still looked exactly as it did decades ago.
Watch the video here:
It was an unusually literal way of making a larger argument: This is what I look like. Now say what you want. And perhaps that is more interesting than the shirtless moment itself.
The Problem Isn’t That Salman Khan Has Aged. It’s That We Expect Him Not To
Salman Khan is 60. For more than three decades, he has been one of Hindi cinema’s most recognisable stars. For much of that time, his physicality has been central to the Salman Khan image — the bare torso, the muscles, the action-hero swagger and the carefully maintained larger-than-life persona. That also means any visible change to his body is unlikely to remain just a personal change.
The internet notices.
Then comments.
Then jokes.
And eventually, the comments themselves become content. Salman acknowledged precisely that during the episode. Referring to age-shaming, he pointed out that he cannot be expected to look like the young actor audiences remember from Maine Pyaar Kiya forever.
Yet that is often what celebrity culture demands. Grey hair becomes news. Weight gain becomes news. A softer jawline becomes news. A face without makeup becomes news. The expectation is no longer merely that stars should look good. It is that they should remain camera-perfect indefinitely.
Salman’s response challenged that expectation by refusing, at least for that moment, to conceal precisely the things social media had already decided were worth mocking.
When a Celebrity’s Body Becomes Public Property
Body-shaming is sometimes discussed as if fame somehow protects people from it. In reality, celebrities occupy an unusually uncomfortable space where their bodies are simultaneously personal and commercial. They are photographed for a living.
Their clothes are dissected. Airport appearances become stories. Screenshots are enlarged. Weight changes are analysed from photographs. Faces are compared across decades. At some point, observation begins to resemble ownership. Salman addressed that distinction directly.
Audiences, he argued, are entirely entitled to dislike an actor’s work or criticise a film. But buying a ticket to watch an actor does not mean buying the actor. “You bought a ticket to watch the film. You didn’t buy us,” he said. It is a simple distinction, but an increasingly important one in an era in which social media has almost erased the distance between audiences and celebrities.
A viewer can now move from watching a film to directly commenting on an actor’s weight, marriage, family, face or age within seconds. Criticism of the work quietly becomes judgement of the person.
Women Face an Even Harsher Version of the Same Scrutiny
Salman did not limit the discussion to himself. During the episode, he also questioned the trolling of women over physical changes after pregnancy. His remarks came amid widespread online commentary surrounding Katrina Kaif’s post-pregnancy appearance, although Salman did not name her directly.
The underlying question was straightforward: why should a woman become a target because her body changed after giving birth? That question exposes another imbalance in celebrity culture. Male stars are mocked for ageing. Women are often expected not to age at all.
Pregnancy, weight changes, wrinkles, grey hair and even natural changes in facial appearance can become subjects of scrutiny — as though maintaining the appearance audiences first associated with a star were part of an unwritten contract. It is not.
Perhaps Celebrities Aren’t Asking Us to Stop Looking — Just to Stop Feeling Entitled
There is no realistic version of celebrity culture in which audiences stop noticing how stars look. Appearance is part of the entertainment industry. Actors are styled, photographed, promoted and marketed through images. Physical transformations can themselves become part of a film’s publicity.
But there should still be a distinction between noticing and policing. Salman’s larger argument was not that nobody should have an opinion about him. In fact, he explicitly acknowledged that people are free to dislike his work or criticise his films. His objection was to the assumption that criticism of entertainment automatically gives audiences permission to criticise somebody’s body, age, family or private life.
That distinction matters. Because the language of trolling often disguises itself as harmless opinion.
“He has become fat.”
“She looks old.”
“What happened to her face?”
“He doesn’t look like he used to.”
Individually, such comments can appear trivial. Collectively, repeated thousands of times and amplified through social media, they create an expectation that a celebrity’s body exists permanently for public evaluation.
The Most Interesting Part Was That Salman Didn’t Apologise
Perhaps the most telling part of Salman Khan’s response was not that he looked different from the younger version audiences remember. Of course he does. Everyone does. What stood out was that he seemed unwilling to apologise for it.
For a celebrity whose public image has been built partly around physical strength and a carefully maintained action-hero persona, standing before the same audience without trying to hide the imperfections was unusually direct. No makeup. No attempt to recreate the body from an earlier phase of his career. No apology for being 60.
That does not end celebrity body-shaming, nor does one television moment resolve the contradictions of an industry that itself profits enormously from idealised bodies and manufactured perfection.
But it does expose how strange the expectation has become. A star grows older, as every person does. The body changes, as every body does. Yet audiences can behave as though ageing itself represents some kind of failure. Perhaps that is why Salman Khan simply taking off his shirt and showing up as he is became such a statement.
The pressure on celebrities to remain perfect has become so normalised that refusing to pretend can itself look like an act of defiance.
