The viral clip, taken from an old conversation with Siddharth Kannan, shows Ibrahim discussing his two-year relationship with Padukone from early in her career, before she became one of Bollywood's biggest stars. In it, he claimed Padukone was the one who initiated the relationship, saying she was the first person he met when she arrived in Mumbai and that she was the one who proposed the relationship. He went on to say the breakup wasn't mutual — that he was the one who ended it, and that he has no regrets about the decision. At the time, he said, he was already an established actor while Padukone was still working as a model.

Ibrahim didn't stop at describing the breakup. In the same conversation, he acknowledged how dramatically their career trajectories have since diverged, noting that Padukone is now a superstar while he remains comparatively unknown. He said he continues to admire her and still considers her a beautiful woman, and added that the two stayed on cordial terms after splitting, occasionally checking in and congratulating each other on career milestones — including, he said, in the period before Padukone's marriage.

Once the clip started circulating widely on social media this week, Ibrahim posted his own response, saying what was being shared online was only a small portion of a much longer conversation. He argued that pulling isolated moments out of context had stripped the exchange of the respect it originally carried, saying the tone of the full interview didn't match how the clip was being framed online.

Padukone, now married to actor Ranveer Singh with whom she shares a daughter, has not commented on the resurfaced remarks. Neither has her team issued any statement addressing Ibrahim's original comments or his subsequent clarification.

The renewed attention comes amid a broader pattern of old celebrity interviews resurfacing and taking on new life on social media, often stripped of the context in which they were originally said — something Ibrahim's clarification post directly pointed to as the source of the controversy.