Shah Rukh Khan may not be instantly recognisable to us blinkered people in the west, but the Bollywood star is an absolutely huge deal with a following more than twice the size of Arsenal’s.
So, when Shah Rukh Khan tweeted that he had met Mesut Ozil and is fiancee Amine Guise after the Arsenal match against Newcastle, the interweb got a little excited:
What a lovely evening @Arsenal congratulations. Thx @MesutOzil1088 & #AmineGulse for your warmth love & hospitality. See u guys soon in India. pic.twitter.com/4rtBJXZ5uW
— Shah Rukh Khan (@iamsrk) April 1, 2019
The size of Shah Rukh Khan’s following, not only on Twitter, highlights how little attention many in the west pay to Bollywood despite the fact tickets sales often dwarf those reported by Hollywood.
Khan landed his first starring role on TV back in 1989 when he starred in Dil Dariya and is now regarded as one of the most successful film stars in the world.
Khan’s tweet about Ozil, at the time of writing, had well over 1,000 replies, and more than 35,000 likes.
https://twitter.com/Arsenal/status/1112841769736126464
To compare, a tweet from Arsenal which featured Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Black Panther star, Letitia Wright, posted at around the same time, garnered 27,000 likes, blowing all their other Arsenal tweets out of the water yet still not coming close to Khan’s reach.