Much has been speculated about Karan Johar's sexuality. But Karan has till date never openly talked about it. Recently, he released his biography, An Unsuitable Boy, and The Times Of India shared some excerpts from the book. He talked about his sexuality like never before. He quoted as saying, "Everybody knows what my sexual orientation is. I don't need to scream it out. If I need to spell it out, I won't only because I live in a country where I could possibly be jailed for saying this. Which is why I Karan Johar will not say the three words that possibly everybody knows about me." 

The filmmaker also opened up about the homophobia and the daily abuse he faces on social media. He wrote, "I have become like the poster boy of homosexuality in this country. But honestly, I have no problem with people saying what they want about me. Twitter has the most abuse. I wake up to at least 200 hate posts saying, 'Get out, you're polluting our nation, you're dirtying society' or 'Shove [IPC Section] 377 up your arse.' I get this on a daily basis and I've learned to laugh it off.¦One man came up to me once very cockily at Heathrow airport and said, 'Is it true that you are a homo?' He was with his wife and child, and he asked me this. I looked at him and said, 'Why, are you interested?' And he said, 'Hey, what-what what!' And I said, 'Don't what-what me.' And I walked out."

For the longest time, people had interpreted his relationship with his best friend Shah Rukh Khan as something else. Karan wrote, "For heaven's sake, for years there were rumours about Shah Rukh and me. And I was traumatized by it. I was on a show on a Hindi channel, and I was asked about Shah Rukh.'Yeh anokha rishta hai aap ka,' the interviewer said. He worded it in such a way that I got really angry. I said, 'If I asked you if you are sleeping with your brother, how will you feel?' So he said, 'What do you mean? How can you ask me this question?' I said, 'How could you ask me this question? For me, no matter what ups and downs Shah Rukh and I have been through, he is a father figure, an older brother to me. For me to look at him in that way or be subjected to those rumours was just ridiculous."

Karan also opened about his sex, which he said, was "very personal" and "very intimate" for him. He said,"I lost my virginity at 26. Yes, it is true. Why would I say this on record if it were not? It's not something I am proud of. It was in New York. Up till that point, I was sexually completely inexperienced. Even when I was a kid, I was very backward in this department." Explaining the reason, he wrote, "While growing up, I was combating a hundred issues in my head. The thought of sex made me awkward; it almost rattled me. I thought, am I asexual? Why am I not feeling this? Why am I not doing anything? There was a lot of turbulence in my head. For me to address it, talk about it, discuss it, was a big no-no. I brushed it under the carpet all through the making of Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge and Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. At that time, I was also very large and was grappling with my weight issues. I felt physically undesirable. Post Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, I had actually started working a little on my looks. I had lost some weight and had groomed myself a bit. Finally, I had developed a little spring in my step, a little confidence. That's when my first encounter happened, after the release of Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, out of the country."