Karan Johar says Koffee With Karan Season 9 will be the show's last

Filmmaker Karan Johar is ending Koffee With Karan. On Wednesday he shared an emotional promo video confirming that the upcoming ninth season will be the last one for his celebrity chat show. The final season streams on JioHotstar from October 14.

The show has been running for 22 years, over eight seasons and 161 episodes. According to reports, it first aired on Star World in 2004 and moved to streaming in 2022. Over the years, its candid chats, rapid-fire rounds and surprise revelations from Hindi film stars created plenty of headlines and a good share of controversy.

In the promo, Karan went back to how it all started. In 2004 he told his father, producer Yash Johar, that he wanted to host an informal talk show with two stars at a time. His father doubted the idea and asked who would pay him to chat with his friends, which he did anyway. Yash Johar passed away soon after, and the first episode followed in August that year.

Karan also looked back on the show's colourful history with humour. He joked that it nearly ended the careers of some national icons and that he still lives with the word "nepotism". He noted that some guests who came on as couples later married, while others parted ways. He added that people ask him about the next season of the show more often than about his next film.

In a statement, Karan said some journeys end when you simply know it is time to let go. He said the audience had stayed with the show through the laughs, the debates and the trolling. He called the goodbye emotional but right, and invited viewers to join him for "one last cup of Koffee".

Reports say fans called the news the end of an era, with some asking for more seasons and one hoping Shah Rukh Khan appears in the final run. Alok Jain of JioStar reportedly said the show had built a fandom that very few shows have matched.