Category: 5. Entertainment

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

“We’re all islands shouting lies to each other,” according to Rudyard Kipling. But where would practitioners of crime fiction be without the all-deceiving falsehood?

Take The Good Liar by Denise Mina (Harvill Secker £16.99/Mulholland Books $29), in which the talented Scottish writer delivers another excoriating saga of murder and guilt. Claudia, a widowed forensic examiner, has forged a technique of analysing blood splatter that has taken her profession by storm. After a brutal stabbing, she has brought down a killer — but is the imprisoned man really guilty?

About to give a key speech, Claudia agonises over revealing a grim truth that will destroy her reputation. And as a native Glaswegian struggling with the mores of the English upper crust, she is out of her comfort zone. Intelligent as ever, Mina judiciously orchestrates suspense and anatomises issues of class — and even the nature of truth.

Similarly, Laura Shepherd-Robinson’s The Art of a Lie (Mantle £18.99/ Atria Books $28) tackles the human capacity for dissembling in a richly textured narrative, reminding us that Shepherd-Robinson has few equals in the field of the historical crime novel. As with Mina’s latest, the heroine here, confectioner Hannah Cole, has lost a husband, the murdered Jonas, whose creative accounting has left her virtually penniless.

Magistrate and real-life master of the 18th-century novel Henry Fielding is investigating Jonas’s killing, and concludes that the dead man was a cruel and abusive husband. Did Hannah murder him — before introducing to the English palate a new Italian delicacy called “iced cream”? Everything we go to Shepherd-Robinson for is here in abundance: vivid scene setting, acute sense of period, quirky characterisation.

Here’s a question that crime fiction reviewers are asked on an almost weekly basis: is the Nordic noir phenomenon finally over? The answer: not really. While the mega-sales of many Scandinavian writers are somewhat in abeyance and there are no massively successful television series of the order of The Killing and The Bridge, the best Nordic practitioners have hung in there and are still producing sterling work.

Such as the uncrowned king of the Icelandic branch of the genre, Arnaldur Indriđason. The stygian nights of his country — and its recent dramatic history (including societal and financial unrest) — are refracted through the writer’s work. The Quiet Mother (translated by Philip Roughton; Harvill Secker £14.99/Minotaur Books $29) is vintage Indriđason. A woman is murdered in her Reykjavík home, leaving a note for retired detective Konrád, pleading that he finds the child she gave up half a century ago. Konrád’s investigation uncovers a succession of dramatic revelations linked to a decades-old murder — and his own past. This is comprehensive proof that the crown rests securely on King Arnaldur’s head.

There are, however, younger Scandinavian pretenders biting at his heels — such as Eva Björg Ægisdóttir, whose name may be a challenge for Anglocentric readers but whose work is authoritative and engaging. Home Before Dark (Orenda £16.99) is translated by the doyenne of her profession, Victoria Cribb, and begins in Iceland in 1967. Teenage Marsí has been corresponding with a boy on the other side of the country, but she has been masquerading as her own older sister.

When, however, a meeting is arranged, she finds herself unable to go, and her older sister disappears during the night of the meeting, her bloodstained anorak discovered at the proposed rendezvous. Ten years later, suffering disturbing dreams, Marsí receives a letter from her unseen pen pal. Is he a psychopath and a threat to her? This is psychological thriller writing of a rare order and evidence that any comments about the demise of Scandicrime are greatly exaggerated.

The broad canvas of crime fiction has always had room for innovative, unorthodox outings, and aficionados of the work of Massachusetts-resident writer Peter Swanson can always count on him to deliver something unusual, as with Kill Your Darlings (Faber £18.99/William Morrow $30).

The reverse chronology narrative here begins with an attempted murder at a dinner party. The aspiring killer is Wendy Graves, a failed poet whose husband Thom has written a murder mystery — a version of their own story; we are told in riveting detail what inspired this attempted homicide. Swanson is an aficionado of the films of Alfred Hitchcock, and this one (while not quite his best work) exerts the same merciless grip.

Finally, two very different but equally beguiling crime entries. The Good Father by Liam McIlvanney (Zaffre £16.99) shows that the writer has inherited his nigh-legendary father’s writing skills (William McIlvanney was the progenitor of Tartan noir); the disappearance of a couple’s child inexorably tears the parents apart — while Philip Gwynne Jones’s The Magus of Sicily (Constable £22) invokes Italy’s most exquisite island as a setting for myth and murder. This is Swansea-born Gwynne Jones (who now lives in Venice) using his adopted country in truly evocative fashion.

Barry Forshaw is the author of ‘Euro Noir’

Join our online book group on Facebook at FT Books Café and follow FT Weekend on Instagram, Bluesky and X

You may have seen a certain video online of a man climbing some stairs. Actually, he’s repeatedly falling from them but then magically bounces back up, weightless as a moon-walker. Out of sight is a trampoline, which gently catapults his looping, twisting body up the staircase each time he falls, turning a would-be simple journey into an epic, poetic odyssey that has caught the internet’s imagination. Pop star Pink saw it and immediately got on the phone to its creator; Martin Short even made his own version on Only Murders in the Building.

The act is the work of French choreographer-director Yoann Bourgeois, 43, whose live performances have been touring festivals for years. But the popularity of his videos online has propelled him into new realms, working with Harry Styles, Coldplay, Selena Gomez and Louis Vuitton. He continues to create new, live work and brings his latest outdoor piece, Passage, to Greenwich and Docklands festival this summer.

Some people run away to the circus; others have it arrive on their doorstep. Bourgeois’ parents separated when he was growing up in Jura, eastern France, and their house was sold to a circus group, Cirque Plume. Bourgeois was already interested in theatre (and later studied dance) and he began to train with the group. “In a way I was looking for a way to get back home,” he says, via a translator. It wasn’t just about returning to the physical building, but the spirit of childhood. “I really wanted to continue to be a child. I’ve searched for a life where I can continue to play; it drives my career even now.”

What Bourgeois plays with are the invisible physical forces that surround us – gravity, tension, suspension – and the interaction between those forces, the performers’ bodies and symbolic ideas. For example in Ellipse, the dancers are in costumes like lifesize Weebles with semi-circular bases, rocking and spinning, but never falling. A man and woman “dance” together, swaying past each other but never quite managing to connect. (Missy Elliott wore a version of the same costume in her video Cool Off.) In Celui Qui Tombe (He Who Falls), the performers stand on a wooden platform that rotates, at some speed, then tilts, forcing their bodies to lean at precarious angles to keep their balance, and the group have to navigate this peril together.

The short piece Bourgeois is bringing to London is called Passage, and features a revolving mirrored door and pole dancer Yvonne Smink hanging, swinging, balancing and turning the simple act of crossing a threshold into something of infinite possibilities. Much like the way sculptor Antony Gormley hit upon a universal idea in his use of the body, Bourgeois works with the same kind of directness: a seemingly simple setup or visual idea that represents something huge – life, death, time, mortality, struggle, hope – in a way that’s easily readable but can feel profound. Here he is talking about suspension: “In physics, suspension means the absence of weight. But if we speak about time, suspension means absolute presence. And I think this cross between absence of weight and absolute presence is like a small window on eternity. That’s what I search for: to catch the present, to intensify the present.”

Even though Bourgeois seeks to be live in the ephemeral moment, you can see why the recorded versions have gone viral. He admits his work looks good on screen. “I feel very lucky because, by chance, my work can be eloquent in this kind of frame, on Instagram for example,” he says. He’s interested in clarity not overcomplication and embraces his wide fanbase. “I didn’t grow up in a family interested in art,” says Bourgeois, and that’s who he imagines making his work for.

He’s reaching even more eyeballs now with his pop star collaborations. For the Harry Styles video As It Was, Bourgeois designed another revolving platform that saw Styles and his lover being pulled together and apart. “Behind the superficial pop veneer of the song, there’s a great sense of despair,” he says.

Bourgeois designs his own stage machines, but the revolving floor is, he points out, a very old theatrical device. The question of what’s truly new in art came to the fore when he was accused of plagiarism in a video posted online comparing scenes from his work with scenes from other artists. There are some striking similarities but Bourgeois is robust in his defence, saying that the works referenced motifs from the history of art, which he considers to be in the public domain. Many circus performers will use the same props. “If you use just a frame of a video, it’s easy to make a comparison,” he says. “What is original is the treatment and the creative process.” We need to look at the whole work rather than an isolated image, he insists. What’s certain is that Bourgeois can turn universal ideas into something eye-catching that connects deeply with audiences – imbued with the wonder of circus and the grace of dance.

Two weeks ago, halfway through his first ever UK show, Hanumankind instructed the crowd to mimic him by hopping to the right then to the left, back and forth, in unison. But the rapper from India slipped and fell, limping to the end of the gig in evident pain, kept upright by his DJ and inspired by the audience’s singalong familiarity with his catalogue.

“We were ready to have a good time,” he sheepishly grins from an armchair at his record label’s offices three days later. It turns out he has torn a ligament. “It was a battle of internal turmoil. The show was like a fifth of what it was meant to be, but I gave it my all. London has a beautiful energy which gave me strength.”

Even without the leg injury, the 32-year-old star, who was born Sooraj Cherukat, has reached a testing threshold in his short, explosive career. His tracks Big Dawgs and Run It Up, helped by action-movie music videos, have made him one of the most talked-about MCs in the world. A$AP Rocky and Fred Again are among his recent collaborators. Indian prime minister Narendra Modi even invited Cherukat to perform at an event in New York last September.

But as a rare south Asian face in globally popular rap, he feels a certain responsibility. “The past year has been hard,” he says. “I’m trying to navigate through it.” What’s more, although he expresses a deep pride about life in India, “a lot of things are off. There is a mob mentality. There’s a lot of divisiveness because of religion, background, caste. It doesn’t sit well with me. I’m in a unique space to change the way people can think within my country.”

Born in Malappuram, Kerala, which he remembers as a “green, beautiful environment”, Cherukat spent his childhood following his father’s work abroad, from Nigeria to Saudi Arabia to Britain. “We’d traverse different countries and I’d sing songs in whatever language I was picking up,” he says. “Wherever I went, I had to get involved and be ready to leave. I learned to connect with people. That’s why the power of the word is so important to me.”

At the age of 10, he landed in Houston, Texas, and found a rare stability. It was the early 2000s and the city was an engine room for rap innovation. Cherukat’s set his accent to a southern drawl. Already a fan of heavy metal – which makes sense given his grungy, rockstar leanings today – he became hooked on the local chopped-and-screwed subgenre pioneered by DJ Screw, Three 6 Mafia and Project Pat. In his teens he was “burning CDs full of beats, riding around smoking blunts and hitting hard freestyles”.

He returned to south India just before hitting 20. “The only place I had roots,” he says. He completed a university degree in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, before working a corporate job in the tech hub of Bengaluru. Seeing rap as “a party thing, a way to de-stress and stay connected to the art form”, he performed at open-mic nights, softening his US accent and perfecting his stage show for an Indian audience. “Friends would come to watch and be like, ‘Dude, you’re not bad. You should lock in.’”

So he did. At the end of 2019, Cherukat played his first festival: NH7 Weekender in Pune, Maharashtra. The crowd went wild, quickly morphing from a small handful into a packed moshpit. “They’re rowdy and they’re fucking vibing,” he says. “I rip my shirt off. I’m like, ‘OK, I can do this!’” He quit his job and began plotting his next move, filling notebooks with lyrics throughout the pandemic. These are a blend of cheek and grit delivered with a flow that keeps respawning at different speeds and scales. Soon, Cherukat was signed by Def Jam India.

Part of a movement to reject the remnants of British colonialism in favour of local expression, the proud, rebellious patchwork of Indian hip-hop encompasses the vast country’s “hundreds of languages, each as deeply rooted as the next”, Cherukat explains. “Someone who speaks Hindi or another regional language will give you a vast amount of depth and detail in what they’re doing.” His decision to rap mostly in English therefore came with risks of being perceived as inauthentic at home, but it has certainly helped his global crossover.

Besides, he has found other ways to communicate a homegrown aesthetic. Run It Up marches to the beat of Keralan chenda drums, while its video features martial artists from disparate corners of India. Cherukat performed it with a band of drummers at Coachella festival, his debut US gig. “Most people don’t know what is going on in my country,” he says. “Maybe I can open up some doors, open up some eyes, break out of these bubbles and stereotypes.” Although not religious, Cherukat has a divine figure woven into his performing name. Over recent years, Hanuman, the simian-headed Hindu god of strength and devotion, has been employed everywhere from the car stickers of hypermasculine Indian nationalism to the bloody, satirical critique of Dev Patel’s 2024 thriller, Monkey Man. Where does Hanumankind fit into this: traditionalist or progressive? “I need to make music for myself first,” he says simply. “But when you have a platform, you can bring about change through your words and actions.”

Some fans were disappointed that he accepted the New York invitation from Modi – whose Hindu nationalist government has been accused of democratic backsliding and Islamophobia. Cherukat has defended his appearance, describing it as “nothing political … We were called to represent the nation and we did that.”

But today he claims his “political ideology is pretty clear” to anyone who has been following his career. In one of his earliest singles, 2020’s Catharsis, he rails against systemic corruption, police brutality and armed suppression of protest. “I’m not just trying to speak to people who already agree with me,” he says. “I’m trying to give people who are otherwise not going to be listening a chance to be like, ‘OK, there is some logic to what he’s saying.’”

Monsoon Season, his new mixtape, is just out. It features the mellow likes of Holiday – performed on the massively popular YouTube series Colors – as well as raucous collaborations with US rap luminaries Denzel Curry and Maxo Kream. It is less a narrative album, more a compilation, with songs gathered over the years before the spotlight shone on him.

“I have a lot of memories of coming into Kerala during the monsoon,” says Cherukat of the project’s name. “You can have days where things are absolutely reckless, flooded, out of control. There can be days where you get introspective and think about life. There are days where you love the rain: it feels good, there’s that smell in the air when it hits the mud, the soil, the flowers. Your senses are heightened. You can fall in love with that. Or it can ruin all your plans and you hate it.”

Cherukat’s knee will take some time to recover before he embarks on a North American tour later this year. It’s clear he needs a break: not just to heal, but to continue processing fame, adapt to its changes and return to the studio. “I’m still adjusting,” he says. “The attention, the conversation, the responsibility, the lifestyle, all this shit. Things have been a little haywire. So I just want to go back to the source – and make music.”

In April I took my 16-year-old stepdaughter south to see the cherry trees bloom. Not so far south — just to Mei Ume, the Japanese restaurant at the Four Seasons Hotel in London. Handcrafted paper cherry blossoms sprouted from the light fixtures in the elegant, high-ceilinged room, with its Chinese and Japanese art on the walls to match the blend of those two countries’ cuisines on the menu. For Cherry Blossom Season, the head chef Peter Ho had concocted a series of delicious small plates, matched to cocktails based on Saicho Sparkling Tea. Mine contained Saicho Hojicha (a green tea made smoky by roasting over charcoal), as well as Hennessy XO and Grand Marnier. Nora, being slightly younger, had a mocktail with Saicho Jasmine, green apple puree and vanilla. Mine was good but hers, with the bite of that apple and the perfumed NoLo fizz, was better — and I don’t even much like vanilla.

• This article contains affiliate links that will earn us revenue

This was a revelation. I already knew I liked the Saicho drinks (£17.99, saichodrinks.com) — adding bubbles to the delicate aromas and structured tannins of good tea is a brilliant idea. A recent dinner with the teens involved us all sharing a magnum of Fortnum & Mason’s Sparkling Tea (£45, fortnumandmason.com). Its lemon-peel and thyme flavours were a great complement to one-pot Basque chicken and, especially, an orange, fennel and radish salad. And pouring a magnum for four is a lot more fun than sharing a bottle between two while the young people dissolve their teeth in sugar-loaded soda pop.

I am not giving up alcohol any time soon. But there is, as Maggie Frerejean-Taittinger points out, a pleasure balance. She is the co-creator of French Bloom, one of the best non-alcoholic sparkling wines on the market. She has made canny use of fine chardonnay grapes from Limoux in the Languedoc and of the Champagne expertise available via her husband, Rodolphe Frerejean-Taittinger, who heads Champagne Frerejean Frères. There is even, now, a vintage French Bloom, La Cuvée 2022 (£95, frenchbloom.com). Frerejean-Taittinger has made it her mission to create a sparkling no-alcohol drink from grape juice that is as pleasurable as a champagne. She doesn’t think they are quite there yet. “We hope, in five to seven years, to be able to share a bottle with as much complexity as a wine,” she said at Women in the World of Wine, a conference on the future of wine (alcoholic and otherwise), held last autumn at the sumptuous Royal Champagne & Spa hotel.

I’m sure she will get there. But my assumption has always been that for real complexity, alcohol helps. That Saicho experience made me think again. I experimented with a mocktail of my own: a version of one of my favourite cocktails, the kir royale, champagne and crème de cassis. A slug of Jukes 6 — The Dark Red (£43 for 9x30ml bottles, jukescordialities.com), a savoury black-fruit cordial that is part of the Jukes Cordialities range, topped up with French Bloom’s Le Rosé. It was lovely, softly floral with just a touch of blackberry acidity. After all, the only necessary beverage is water. Everything else is a luxury, intended to elicit the same sensations of delight as gazing at the ephemeral loveliness of cherry blossom. Pleasure is meant to be temporary. It’s the memory that lasts — or at least, it does when the drink is alcohol-free.

Jennifer Lopez faced a wardrobe malfunction that left her on stage in her underwear at a concert in Warsaw, Poland, on Friday night (July 25) — by shrugging it off with a smile.

Emerging from backstage following a wardrobe change, she found herself surprised with a “Happy Birthday” sing-along by her backup singers, dancers and the crowd at PGE Narodowy. But everyone in the room seemed surprised when the star’s gold skirt fell to the floor.

“Oh!” she said. “I’m out here in my underwear. That’s gonna be everywhere.”

When the garment couldn’t easily be reattached, Lopez — who turned 56 earlier in the week, on July 24 — simply threw it into the crowd.

“I’m glad that they reinforced that costume,” she joked. “And I’m glad I had underwear on. I don’t usually wear underwear.”

Whichever fan caught the skirt got to go home with a one-of-a-kind souvenir from J. Lo’s Up All Night Tour: “You can keep it,” Lopez called out. “You can have it. I don’t want it back.”

“You can have it, forever and ever,” she added with a laugh.

A good sport, Lopez uploaded a video of the whole ordeal on her official YouTube channel.

In the clip, she also told her fans and tour crew how appreciative she was of the everyone’s support.

“I am so thankful to be here in beautiful Warsaw on my birthday,” the singer announced. “I gotta tell you, surrounded by my incredible dancers, my band, my crew, everybody — I am so blessed. I don’t usually give any advice to anybody because I feel like we’re all on our own specific journey. … If I had one little piece of advice for you, it would be to do what you love, find what you love, do it, and do it with people that you love, and then you will have the most amazing life. I can say that firsthand.”

She said, “And I also want to say that I believe that the amount of happiness that you have in your heart is, is tied directly to how free you feel, and I wish you guys all the same happiness and freedom and the way you made me feel tonight. … I want you to be feel free to love, free to be who you are, free to just follow your dreams and do all the things that you want to do. I just want you to feel free.”

See J. Lo’s birthday surprise below.

Jennifer Lopez reacted like a pro when she experienced a wardrobe malfunction during a recent concert.

The singer was performing Friday in Warsaw, Poland, on Friday — one day after her 56th birthday — on her Up All Night: Live in 2025 tour when the incident happened.

During a break in the show, Lopez went backstage to change, when her backup singers and dancers came out to wait for her and sing “Happy Birthday” as she came back.

Lopez thanked them and the fans, at which point her gold glittery skirt fell to the floor. She tried to catch it to no avail. 

“Oh!” she said. “I’m out here in my underwear,” she added, as a dancer approached her with the skirt and tried to put it back on. “That’s gonna be everywhere.”

Giving up, she threw the skirt out into the crowd.

“I’m glad that they reinforced that costume,” she said. “And I’m glad I had underwear on. I don’t usually wear underwear. OK!”

When the fan asked if she wanted the skirt back, she told them to keep it. “You can have it. I don’t want it back, forever and ever,” she said, laughing.

Amid big applause from the crowed, she then expressed her gratitude and shared an inspiring message: “I am so thankful to be here in beautiful Warsaw on my birthday. I gotta tell you, surrounded by my incredible dancers, my band, my crew, everybody … I am so blessed. I don’t usually give any advice to anybody because I feel like we’re all on our own specific journey. … If I had one little piece of advice for you, it would be to do what you love, find what you love, do it, and do it with people that you love, and then you will have the most amazing life. I can say that firsthand. And I also want to say that I believe that the amount of happiness that you have in your heart is, is tied directly to how free you feel, and I wish you guys all the same happiness and freedom and the way you made me feel tonight. … I want you to be feel free to love, free to be who you are, free to just follow your dreams and do all the things that you want to do. I just want you to feel free.”

Showing she’s a good sport, the video was uploaded to her official YouTube channel, where it’s racked up more than 310,000 views so far.

Watch it below.

According to viral social media posts, The Simpsons predicted a kiss cam moment at a Coldplay concert in July 2025. After a video went viral allegedly showing the Astronomer CEO caught cheating with the company’s chief people officer, users on social media quickly claimed this was another event the sitcom had predicted long before it happened.

As per DW, the rumour spread across various social media platforms like TikTok, X, Instagram and Facebook, in various languages. Some posts garnered millions of views, and some even contained specific details, such as the season, episode and air date, where the supposed screenshot was allegedly taken from. DW Fact Check had a look into the alleged prediction.

Claim: “Did The Simpsons really predict the Coldplay Concert incident in a 2003 episode? (The alleged affair or sighting of Astronomer CEO Andy Byron & Kristin Cabot),” says this post on X that includes a still of the kiss cam footage alongside an image that appears to show the similar scene from the The Simpsons cartoon.

DW Fact Check: False

Most versions of the rumour claim the prediction occurred in Season 26, Episode 10, The Man Who Came to Be Dinner. The episode aired on January 4, 2015, and features a plot in which the Simpson family is abducted by aliens while visiting an amusement park. The episode is available on streaming platforms and YouTube here. However, there is no such scene in this episode.

Another episode, Season 17, Episode 22, Marge and Homer Turn a Couple Play, does include a kiss cam scene, but it takes place at a baseball match, and the characters kissing are Marge and Homer.

The alleged prediction screenshot circulating online is, therefore, most likely generated by artificial intelligence or digitally manipulated. DW Fact Check uploaded the image to several AI-detection platforms, including AIorNot, which labeled it as “likely AI-generated.” Hive Moderation even gave an estimate of 99.9 per cent “likely to contain AI-generated or deepfake content.”

But this isn’t the first time The Simpsons has allegedly predicted future events. You may have seen some of these viral claims before:

Trump as US president

One of the most famous alleged predictions from The Simpsons was that Donald Trump would become the president of the United States.

In Season 11, Episode 17, Lisa Simpson did actually reference Donald Trump’s presidency in an episode that originally aired on March 19, 2000. In the episode, set in the future, Lisa is the current US president and implies that real estate mogul Trump had been her predecessor and caused a budget crisis. In 2015, the media cited the episode as a foreshadowing of Trump’s future presidential run.

However, the image often used to illustrate this “presidential prediction” is actually from a short episode called Trumptastic Voyage, from Season 25, which aired in July 2015, after Trump had already announced his candidacy. The image shows Trump and Homer on an escalator in front of a crowd. The cartoon scene is based on a real-life event from June of the same year.

2024 Baltimore bridge

Another viral post claimed that The Simpsons predicted the March 2024 collapse of the Baltimore bridge, showing Homer and Lisa watching the event unfold. At first glance, the image looks real, but the devil is in the details. There are small hints that this image is actually AI-generated.

If you take a closer look at the image, you’ll see that Lisa’s hair has 10 spikes, whereas the real character of the cartoon series only has eight. Homer’s hair is also incorrect – the zigzags are noticeably narrower than in the show.

COVID-19 pandemic

Many people have also claimed online that the show predicted the COVID-19 pandemic. They refer to Season 4, Episode 21, titled Marge in Chains. In the episode many Springfield residents order juicers from Osaka, Japan. One of the factory workers is sick and coughs into the boxes, spreading what becomes known as the “Osaka Flu.”

The only similarity between the “Osaka Flu” and COVID-19 is that both originated in East Asia. The fictional flu did not lead to a global lockdown, a pandemic or millions of deaths. By contrast, COVID-19 was far more serious, resulting in over 7 million deaths worldwide, as recorded by the World Health Organisation.

Aashir Wajahat has quite literally grown up in front of the camera. From delivering memorable performances as a child actor in Mai Kukkoo Aur Woh and Karachi Se Lahore, to producing musical hits like Sadqay and Peetal, the actor-musician has steadily carved out a space for himself in Pakistan’s entertainment industry.

In a recent appearance on Excuse Me with Ahmad Ali Butt, Wajahat opened up about navigating his career amid the pressures of media visibility and family legacy.

Reflecting on the course his life has taken, Wajahat shared, “I was born into acting. I really enjoyed my time on set as a kid and learned a lot. If I were given a choice now, I would still choose acting – but maybe start much later in adulthood.”

Carving his film career

His foray into acting began almost intuitively. “I would memorise my lines very quickly and never got nervous in front of the camera,” he recalled. “That became a sign for my parents that I might be good at this, so I started taking on roles that came my way.”

Wajahat described his early experiences in the industry positively. “I did my first film at the age of 13. Being on set was always fascinating. That, combined with the attention I received, really deepened my interest in this world.”

However, the pressures of being part of a well-known showbiz family eventually led him to take a break. “There was a lot of pressure. My father is a famous director-screenwriter and my mother produces films. Stepping away helped me reassess the direction I wanted to take in life.”

Making a comeback

Wajahat made his return to the big screen with the critically acclaimed film John in 2023. “When I came back, I knew I had to win the audience over. If I could pull this off, I’d be able to prove my worth as an actor,” he said. “The experience really humbled me, and I don’t find other shoots as difficult anymore.”

Laughing, he added, “It was also the only movie I was offered on my return, so I had to take it.”

For now, the actor is taking things slow, “John was very well received by the fraternity but it didn’t make me the overnight hero I was hoping to be.”

The process taught Wajahat to patiently approach projects. “The film took a long time to make. That was quite draining for me and I saw how much work goes into one project. I sort of took a step back then and I am more mindful of what projects are offered to me.”

Media pressure

Wajahat expressed his feelings about his presence in the online realm, “I have had a bittersweet relationship with social media. I have seen online hate up-close and people stitch nepotism to my name as well. In the present, I only use social media as a billboard for my work. I don’t really like showing my personal life on social media.”

Reflecting on earlier media interaction, the actor said, “I used to be very naive and would post every song cover or picture I took. With time I realised that while it’s good to stay connected with fans and exhibit your work, it opens the floor to a fair deal of criticism.”

The actor doesn’t blame the audience for this, “If you are putting your life out there then it becomes public property. People have a right to comment on it and you can’t complain.”

The actor has made headlines for getting trolled often, to this he responded, “When my music came out, people trolled me a lot. Our people can also get a bit aggressive with it too. At first I was upset but then I reflected on it.

“I realised I was also doing some things wrong and really worked on myself.”

The host of the podcast mentioned Wajahat’s recent controversial videos with Hania Aamir that surfaced the internet. Rumours of an alleged affair between the two spread and the two were under fire for promoting indecency on social media.

“Did that occurrence make you hold back from social media afterwards?” asked the host.

Wajahat responded, “Yes, I think so. After this backlash, an actor said something very wise to me. ‘As long as you will be seen with famous people, you will be known for being in other people’s stories. Never for your own work. Focus on your work so that it is highlighted more.”

He has learned a great deal from his media mishaps, “I realised this is not what I want to be known for. If I am hanging out with my friends then why should that become news? I am still friends with these people but I don’t publicise it. It can be too much.”

Fans packed the 8,000-seat Tokyo Garden Theater in January for GMMTV Fan Fest 2025: “Live in Japan,” a major event celebrating Thai BL, short for “boys’ love,” dramas.

Banners bearing the faces of beloved on-screen couples lined the walls, while attendees clutched handmade signs along with flowers, letters and other gifts.

This was no one-off event, either. Similar gatherings happen every few months across the country, drawing dedicated communities of viewers who have embraced Thai BL dramas as more than just entertainment.