Hotel rooms are royal jails: How Virat Kohli handles his popularity

Virat Kohli reveals how he uses staff corridors to sneak in and out of any hotel.

Indian cricket team captain Virat Kohli feels that five stars hotel rooms, where he spends most time of his cricketing calendar year, are just like “royal jails”. In an interview to ESPN, the legendary cricketer said that hotel rooms are “royal jails” where “you can’t do anything”.

Blaming it on his popularity and celebrity status, Kohli told the sports magazine that he cannot even manage to go to the restaurants of the hotels he stays in. “I can’t even think of going down to the hotel restaurant to eat. Forget going out of the hotel,” Kohli told ESPN.

Recalling that the situation was much different seven years back, when he could peacefully sit in a hotel restaurant and have his food, Kohli says that now he had no option but to order all his meals through room service and eat them in his room.

Even when he has to make any movement outside the room, he sneaks through the staff corridors of the hotel.

Further talking about his popularity and the perception of people regarding him, Kohli said that his life can be considered an experiment and can be studied by the future generations. According to the skipper, “you are gone if you don’t have the ability to handle it (popularity/celebrity status)”.

Life is, however, changing for Kohli post his marriage with Bollywood actress Anushka Sharma. Pointing that Anushka is spiritual, Kohli says that he is drifting on the same path and things are unlocking for him in a different way.