Bollywood megastar Shah Rukh Khan will, in fact, be in town for the IIFA Awards

Although the rumour mill is still rapidly churning, we’re happy to confirm that Shah Rukh Khan—the man who drew a bigger crowd than Brad Pitt at last year’s TIFF and recorded a track with Akon, “Wanna Be My Chamak Challo,” for his upcoming superhero movie RA.One—will be in attendance at the International Indian Film Academy Awards at the Rogers Centre this weekend. The Bollywood actor-producer’s attendance has been the 64,000-rupee question surrounding this year’s Bollywood Oscars, but Khan delighted his massive legion of fans when he tweeted earlier today that he would be at the event. Apparently, he’ll be hosting both a party at the Sheraton hotel and performing a much-anticipated dance routine at the ceremony on Saturday (unless his recent knee injury keeps him on the sideline). The performance will mark Khan’s first on the IIFA stage in seven years—but his attendance alone won’t be enough to quiet the brouhaha that has erupted around the megastar.

With “King” Khan confirming his appearance at the IIFA Awards, he’s essentially replacing one controversy with another. The big question now looming over the proceedings is whether his attendance will spark a green carpet bloodbath. Word is that Shah Rukh Khan and Salman Khan (no relation, but also planning to attend the awards) have been mired in a Bollywood feud for the better part of the last three years, and the backstory is pretty ridiculous. Apparently, Shah Rukh made an “off-colour” joke about former Miss World Aishwarya Rai at a Bollywood afterparty that Salman found particularly offensive. A fight broke out that quickly progressed from verbal to physical, and the two movie stars needed to be physically dragged away from each other. The confrontation sent the Bollywood community into a frenzy (although we’re not surprised that this guy was looking to scrap), and the two have yet to hug it out and make up. “Salman and I are parallels,” SRK said in an interview earlier this year, “and parallels never meet.” Uh, okay?

Who knows how things will shake down come Saturday, but for one of the two, we hope it ends like this.