‘Men only feel pain when actresses are paid more’: How Preity Zinta and Sonakshi Sinha silenced Kapil Sharma at Screen Awards | Bollywood News
4 min readHyderabadMar 29, 2026 06:00 PM IST
Ahead of the Chetak Screen Awards 2026, set to take place on April 5 in Mumbai, we look back at some of the most memorable moments from past editions of the awards. One such highlight came at the 22nd Screen Awards, when Kapil Sharma and Karan Johar found themselves completely outmanoeuvred on stage by Preity Zinta, Shilpa Shetty, Farah Khan, and Sonakshi Sinha in a banter session that the audience has not forgotten since.
The evening’s first crack appeared when Karan Johar, ever the picture of composed sophistication, took one look at the broom being handed to him on stage and announced he would rather be anywhere else. “I don’t like this broom,” he said, making his position on manual labour abundantly clear.
Kapil Sharma, sensing an opportunity, turned to the audience with a grin. Was this not, he asked Karan, the very same thing used to clean houses first thing in the morning? Or did people of Karan’s standing prefer a fancier arrangement? The audience laughed.
Kapil, emboldened by the crowd’s response, launched “Men,” he declared with complete confidence, “have a higher pain threshold than women”. His proof? Call any woman “Aunty” and within two minutes her face would turn a shade of red that no blush product on the market could replicate.
Karan Johar, who has spent enough time around the women of Bollywood to know exactly how this kind of statement lands, issued a warning. The girls, he told Kapil Sharma, had already put up with a great deal from him that evening. A beating, he felt, was not entirely out of the question.
Kapil was unmoved. “Did the girls have the guts to do anything about it? Out here, in the open, in front of everyone?” he said. He invited Karan to call them over. He wanted everyone to watch what happened next. “You’re saying all this, acting like quite the tough guy. Let’s see how long that manliness’ lasts,” Karan retaliated
What happened next arrived in the form of Preity Zinta, Shilpa Shetty, and Farah Khan, each carrying a broom, each wearing an expression that suggested they had heard every word and had been waiting for precisely this moment. Preity cut straight to it. “I’ve heard that the entire film industry is actually ruled by men,” she said, looking directly at Kapil Sharma.
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Kapil folded instantly. “Hey, that’s exactly what I was saying!” he replied, grinning nervously. “That girls rule everything everywhere. I wasn’t saying anything to the contrary, Sir!”
Preity was not buying a word of it. With the calm of someone who has navigated two decades in an industry that has done its best to sideline its women, she delivered her own observation. “Men never feel any pain at all,” she said, adding, “The only time they feel pain is when the actresses get paid more money than they do. That’s the real tragedy.”
If Kapil had been hoping the worst was behind him, Sonakshi Sinha had other ideas. “Kapil, just look to your right for a second,” she said, bringing along Harshaali Malhotra with her. Sonakshi added, “Let me clear up this misconception of yours right now. Bajrangi Bhaijaan dominated the box office precisely because Bajrangi had Munni by his side.”
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Amid all the chaos, Karan Johar stepped forward for what turned out to be one of the night’s more genuinely moving moments, presenting the Best Child Artist Award to Harshaali Malhotra. “Let’s have a thunderous round of applause for her. That was a truly beautiful performance. Congratulations,” he told the audience.
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