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Ram Gopal Varma clears the air amid Jai Ho song controversy, calls AR Rahman “greatest composer”
Ram Gopal Varma took to social media to clear the air around his statement regarding AR Rahman not composing Jai Ho song. Read on.
Ram Gopal Varma is known for not mincing his words and often becoming the centre of controversies. Yet again, the filmmaker grabbed headlines when reports suggested he claimed that AR Rahman did not compose Jai Ho, but singer Sukhwinder Singh did. Now, he has cleared the air regarding the ongoing controversy. Read on!
Ram Gopal Varma clears the air amid Jai Ho song controversy
On January 21, 2026, Ram Gopal Varma took to social media and opened up about the controversy surrounding the Oscar-winning song Jai Ho from the 2009 film Slumdog Millionaire. In his tweet, the Indian filmmaker wrote that he’s misquoted. RGV also heaped praise on AR Rahman, calling him “the greatest composer.”
Taking to X (formerly Twitter), Varma penned, “To all concerned .. I am being misquoted and misread out of context in the matter of the Jai ho song . .. in my view @arrahman is the greatest composer and the nicest human being I ever met, and he’s the last person to take away anybody’s credit ..I hope this puts an end to the negativism surrounding the issue.”
Check out his tweet:
RGV’s comment comes after an old interview of the filmmaker resurfaced online. In the earlier interview, the Sarkar director claimed that not AR Rahman, but singer Sukhwinder Singh created the song Jai Ho for which Rahman received an Academy Award.
In the viral clip, RGV can be heard sharing that back in the day, Rahman was notorious for delays. At that time, he was doing Yuvraj for Subhash Ghai. One day, when the ace composer met with Sukhwinder, he asked him if he composed the song, to which the singer responded positively in front of Ghai. So, Sukhwinder played a song, and Rahman asked Subhash if he liked it or not. Upon seeing this, Subhash got angry and reprimanded Rahman.
Responding to Ghai, Rahman said, “Mr Ghai, you are paying for my name, not my work, don't get confused.” RGV further claimed that Rahman asked Sukhwinder to send him another song, which was reportedly sold to the makers of Slumdog Millionaire. Rahman also sent a Rs 5 lakh cheque to Sukhwinder for his creation.
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