Honey Singh Calls Badshah ‘Meri Nalayak Aulaad’ After Samay Raina Reopens Stage-Name Story — but Badshah’s Older Interviews Reveal a More Complicated Truth

A seemingly harmless question from Samay Raina has reopened one of the longest-running debates surrounding Badshah and Yo Yo Honey Singh — who actually came up with the name “Badshah”?

During a bonus episode of India’s Got Latent Season 2, released for YouTube channel members on August 10, 2026, Samay asked Badshah about the origin of his stage name. Badshah said he had chosen the name himself. When Samay indicated that he had heard another version, the rapper dismissed that version as incorrect.

Soon afterwards, an old interview clip resurfaced in which Badshah himself had told a different-looking story: Honey Singh had remarked that he lived “like a Badshah,” leading to the name being adopted. Honey then reacted to the comparison clip with the pointed line, “Meri nalayak aulaad.” 

That exchange is real. But presenting it simply as proof that Badshah has been “caught lying” misses an important part of the public record.

Several other interviews including comments Badshah made years before the latest Latent episode suggest that the two versions may not be completely incompatible.

The old PTC interview is the key piece of evidence

The resurfaced footage comes from a 2014 interview published by PTC Punjabi on its verified YouTube channel.

In that interview, Badshah discussed his early career and his association with Honey Singh. The clip now circulating is significant because it is Badshah not Honey who credits Honey with a role in the naming story.

That corrects an important error in the existing TCH article, which currently says:

“In an older interview clip that has now resurfaced, Honey Singh claimed that he was the person who gave Badshah his stage name.”

The available evidence does not support that formulation.

The resurfaced clip shows Badshah describing Honey Singh’s involvement.

That distinction matters because the contradiction is between Badshah’s own accounts across different years, not simply between competing claims made by two rivals.

But Badshah has repeatedly credited Shah Rukh Khan’s ‘Baadshah’

There is also substantial first-person evidence that Badshah has long identified Shah Rukh Khan’s 1999 film Baadshah as the inspiration for the name.

In a 2018 Hindustan Times interview, he said he was searching for a stage name and chose “Badshah” after the Shah Rukh Khan film.

He gave essentially the same explanation on Kaun Banega Crorepati 13 in 2021.

Speaking to Amitabh Bachchan, Badshah said his earlier rap name had been “Cool Equal”, which originated from his email ID. He then explained that he wanted another name and, being a major Shah Rukh Khan fan, took inspiration from Baadshah.

The story appeared again in an official Aap Ki Adalat interview in December 2023. India TV’s verified programme description explicitly says Badshah explained that he chose his name after watching Shah Rukh Khan’s film.

So the “I chose it because of Shah Rukh Khan” explanation was not invented for Samay Raina’s 2026 episode.

Badshah had publicly been giving that version for years.

A 2024 interview actually connects both versions

The most useful piece of context comes from Badshah’s 2024 interview with The Lallantop.

There, his explanation incorporated both Shah Rukh Khan and Honey Singh.

Badshah said he had always been a Shah Rukh Khan fan and wanted to take the name “Badshah.” He then said he told Honey Singh about the choice, after which Honey responded that the name suited him because of the way he lived -sleeping and waking whenever he wanted.

That account substantially changes the debate.

Under this version:

Shah Rukh Khan’s film provided the inspiration → Badshah wanted the name → Honey Singh approved it and connected it with Badshah’s personality.

That is different from both extreme versions “Honey completely invented the name” and “Honey had absolutely nothing to do with it.”

It also explains how an older interview could reasonably sound as though Honey “gave” him the name while Badshah could later insist that the original idea came from himself.

Samay Raina’s question exposed the inconsistency

The latest controversy still exists because Badshah’s response on India’s Got Latent was categorical.

Samay reportedly asked how he got the name, Badshah said he selected it himself, and when Samay hinted at the Honey Singh version, Badshah replied that the alternative story was wrong.

That opened the door for the 2014 clip to be used as a contradiction.

The episode also reportedly included a separate Honey Singh reference in which Samay sang that he was a Honey Singh fan and referenced “Brown Rang,” another song historically associated with disagreements over creative credit between the two artists.

But the stage-name issue is more documentable than trying to relitigate every disputed song credit from their past.

Honey Singh’s response was a taunt, not a factual explanation

As clips comparing the two interviews circulated, Honey responded online with “Meri nalayak aulaad”, a deliberately provocative phrase that can roughly be rendered as “my useless/unworthy child.”

Some contemporaneous reports instead recorded his wording as “Meri gandi aulaad.” India Today, for instance, uses that version.

Because the original Instagram interaction is no longer reliably accessible through search, it is worth flagging that discrepancy rather than pretending every publication preserved identical wording.

The strongest contemporaneous sources including The Indian Express, NDTV and others record “Meri nalayak aulaad.” That is therefore the safer wording for the headline, while editors should ideally verify the original screenshot before publication.

Their history is bigger than one stage name

Badshah and Honey Singh worked together during the early phase of their music careers and have spent years publicly disagreeing about aspects of that period.

Disputes have involved songwriting, production credits, their professional relationship and even how their early collective should be characterised.

That last point also needs care: Honey Singh later publicly disputed the widely repeated claim that Badshah was formally a member of Mafia Mundeer, saying in 2024 that Badshah had initially been his client.

For that reason, it is more responsible to describe them broadly as former collaborators associated during the early phase of their careers rather than use disputed group history as settled fact.

Badshah has also, at times, signalled a desire to move beyond the hostility. In 2024, he publicly spoke about putting the feud behind him.

The 2026 exchange shows that the old history can still resurface very quickly.

So who actually named Badshah?

Based on the public record, a definitive one-line answer would oversimplify the story.

Badshah has consistently said for years that Shah Rukh Khan’s Baadshah inspired the name.

An older interview shows him crediting Honey Singh with linking the word “Badshah” to his lifestyle.

And his 2024 account neatly combines those two ideas: Badshah says he wanted the name because of Shah Rukh Khan, told Honey Singh about it, and Honey said it suited him.

That is currently the most complete first-person explanation available.

The latest Latent answer makes the history look contradictory because it appears to remove Honey from the process altogether. But the archive suggests the story is less “Who invented the name?” and more “Who inspired it, who suggested it fit, and how has Badshah described those roles at different times?”

The Celebrity Hour Take

The temptation with this story is to turn a ten-second roast-show exchange into a verdict about who is telling the truth.

The evidence supports something more interesting.

Badshah’s own public explanations have evolved in emphasis. Sometimes Shah Rukh Khan is the entire origin story. In the older PTC clip, Honey Singh appears to have a much larger role. In 2024, Badshah combined both threads into one coherent account.

That 2024 explanation should be at the centre of any updated article because it provides context neither side’s latest jab does.

Samay Raina revived the controversy. Honey Singh sharpened it with a characteristically provocative response. But the archived interviews suggest that the real history may sit somewhere between the two competing slogans.

Sources & Verification

The report was independently reconstructed from Badshah’s archived first-person interviews, including PTC Punjabi’s verified 2014 interview, his KBC 13 appearance, India TV’s official Aap Ki Adalat interview and his 2024 comments to The Lallantop, alongside contemporaneous coverage of the August 10, 2026 India’s Got Latent bonus episode.

The older interview is particularly important because it establishes that Badshah himself previously described Honey Singh as having a role in how the name emerged. The original TCH article incorrectly attributes that claim to Honey Singh.

The current Latent episode was released as members-only YouTube content, so its relevant exchange was cross-checked through multiple contemporary publications that described and quoted the segment.