Vicky Kaushal won his first-ever Best Actor award at the 2022 IIFA ceremony, which was hosted in UAE’s Abu Dhabi. His acceptance speech had a special tribute to late actor Irrfan Khan. 

Irrfan Khan, who died at the age of 53 in April 2020, was diagnosed with a colon infection. He had been battling the disease since 2018, delaying his Bollywood projects.

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Vicky Kaushal won the award for the movie ‘Udham Singh’, which was released in 2021. Media reports suggest that the historic flick was first offered to Irrfan Khan, however, was later transferred to Kaushal due to his health issues.

After thanking his family, and wife Katrina Kaif, Vicky Kaushal paid his tribute to Irrfan Khan.

“This is my first best actor award, and I want to dedicate it to an actor whom I’ve admired and respected all my life, we lost him too soon— the original choice to play Sardar Udham, late dear Irrfan sahab”, Vicky Kaushal said while holding the IIFA best actor trophy.

Vicky Kaushal said in an interview that there was a “sense of honour” in replacing Irrfan Khan, an actor who he “loves and admires.”

“It was a big responsibility to replace an actor of his calibre. If I am able to achieve even 1% of what Irrfan Khan could have done, I would feel my job is done”, he told Outlook in an interview.

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The 2022 IIFA Awards event gave tributes to other big names of Bollywood who had recently died. Actor Shahid Kapoor closed the event with a special tribute to singer and composer Bappi Lahiri

who died in February this year.

Kapoor performed on Lahiri’s famous songs like ‘Yaad aa raha hai tera Pyaar’, ‘Tamma Tamma’, ‘Raat Baaki’ and ‘I am a disco dancer’.