Fourteen years after leaving late-night television, the veteran host Shekhar Suman is back, and it’s already making headlines. His new YouTube show ‘Shekhar Tonite’ was launched on May 15, with Union Minister Nitin Gadkari as the first guest, and during the interview, the actor recalled one of the most memorable moments from the iconic 1997 show ‘Movers and Shakers’, a 3 am phone call from Bal Thackeray that led to a dramatic on-air exchange.
Shekhar Suman remembers getting a call from Bal Thackeray at 3 am
Shekhar Suman recalled on the show how one night call Shiv Sena The supremo Bal Thackeray became one of the most stunning interviewees of his career. In a candid interview with Nitin Gadkari, Suman recalled, “Balasaheb Thackeray once called me at three in the morning, complimenting me on an interview he had done. I asked him if he loved the show. Would he come? He agreed, and we shot it the very next day. It was goosebumps when he was giving interviews to him; the man had an aura. I remember looking into his eyes and asking: “Are you a fascist?” And he replied: “Yes, I am a fascist because India needs it.” Wow That was the moment we all clapped, and I said, ‘This is the man who has the guts to say something like that.'”In a recent interview with IANS, Shekhar also shared a lighter moment after the interview.He recalled: “After the interview, he said, ‘That was really fun, do one more,’ so I said, ‘Sir, we don’t have another costume.’ He said, ‘Let’s do this one.’ So it’s a memorable moment for me.”
More about ‘Shekhar Tonite’
‘Shekhar Tonite’ marks Shekhar Suman’s return to the format he pioneered in India with ‘Movers and Shakers’, which debuted in 1997 and gave the country its first desi late-night talk show experience. The new show is live on YouTube.On the acting side, she was last seen in Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s ‘Heeramand: The Diamond Bazaar’. The show premiered on Netflix in May 2024.
