Ismail Darbar slams Bhansali, says won’t work with him even for Rs 100 crore

Music composer Ismail Darbar has broken his silence on his bitter fallout with filmmaker Sanjay Leela Bhansali, describing him as “egoistic”. He also shared that he wouldn’t work with Bhansali again, not even if he was offered ₹100 crore.

Darbar spoke about working with Bhansali during an interview with Vickey Lalwani on his YouTube channel. He worked with Bhansali on Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam.

The working dynamic shifted after a media article praised Darbar's music as the "backbone" of Heeramandi: The Diamond Bazaar. Though the report acknowledged the star cast, it positioned the music as the show's strongest element. After



reading it, Bhansali, as the reports claim, believed that Darbar had planted the story, which led to a rift between them.

Talking about it, Darbar said, “I said, ‘Look, if I have to break the news, I won’t be scared of you; I’ll say it outright that yes, I said it…’ I still don’t know who that man was, but he put that news out and Sanjay found out. He called me into his office and asked, ‘Ismail, how could you say that?’ After that he said, ‘Alright, let it go.’ After that I understood that ‘let it go’ really meant that sooner or later he would put me in a position where I would leave Heeramandi myself. I left before that could happen.”