“Sorry.. I mean it,” celebrity hairstylist Jawed Habib said in a video message last night, apologising for spitting on a woman’s hair during a seminar.
Citing ‘humorous’ intent behind the act, he said, “Some words spoken by me during my seminar have hurt a few people. I just want to say one thing… these are professional workshops, as in, they are attended by people from within our profession. When these sessions get very long, we have to make them humorous. What can I say?”
“If you are truly hurt, I apologise from the bottom of my heart. Please forgive me, I’m sorry,” he said in his message.
The 58-year-old stylist was caught spitting on a woman’s hair instead of using water, in a purported video that soon started circulating on social media.
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The incident reportedly took place during a training seminar in Uttar Pradesh’s Muzaffarnagar. The woman was sitting on a chair on the stage while Habib was working on her hair.
The stylist was also heard saying in the clip, “Iss thook mein jaan hai’.
Soon after it went viral, the woman from the clip, identified as Pooja Gupta, opened up about her experience in another video. “Mera naam Pooja Gupta, Vanshika beauty parlour ke naam se mera parlour hai. Mai Baraut ki rehne wali hoon aur kal maine ek seminar attend kiya Jawed Habib Sir ka. Aur unhone on the stage mujhe haircut ke liye invite kiya, aur unhone itna misbehave kiya. Unhone ye dikhaya hai ki agar aapke paas paani na ho to aap apne thook se bhi haircut kara sakte ho. To maine haircut nahi karaya. Mai apni gali ke nukkad ke nai se baal katwa lungi, par kabhi Jawed Habib se nahi.”
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The video broke the internet as users engaged with the tweet and called out Habib’s misbehaviour. One user wrote, “Can someone explain this nonsense?”, while another said, “Absolutely disgusting. And who are those people clapping? Really? REALLY?”
The National Commission for Women has taken cognizance of the video asked the Uttar Pradesh police to probe its authenticity.
Apart from being a hairstylist and a businessman, Jawed Habib also set foot in politics in 2019, when he joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Delhi.
