U.S. apologizes to Shah Rukh Khan for another airport detention

The U.S. has issued an apology after once again detaining Shah Rukh Khan, one of Indian cinema's biggest stars, at its border.

U.S. Embassy spokesman Peter Vrooman apologized for any inconvenience or delay to the award-winning Bollywood star due to Thursday's detention. 

Khan, dubbed "King Khan" by his fans around the globe, arrived in the U.S. via private plane just before 1 p.m. local time on Thursday. He was en route to Yale University in Connecticut to give a speech in the late afternoon.

Though U.S. customs and border protection officials at the White Plains, N.Y. airport cleared everyone else accompanying  him on the flight, they detained Khan for a reported two hours.

The 46-year-old star was late for both his lecture to hundreds of Yale students, parents and faculty, as well as for a scheduled news conference prior to his official address.

"Whenever I start feeling too arrogant about myself, I always take a trip to America. The immigration guys kicked the star out of stardom," Khan quipped to the audience during his speech, when he finally took the stage.

However, according to reports in Indian media, the star was quite upset about the incident, which has happened several times before.

In 2009, Khan was frisked, questioned and detained for several hours at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey. He had travelled to the U.S. for a celebration with Chicago's South Asian community and to promote his film My Name is Khan, a American-Indian co-production about an Indian Muslim man who undertakes a journey across the U.S.

S.M. Krishna, India's external affairs minister, is among those blasting the repeated mistreatment of Khan and has urged Indian ambassador to the U.S. Nirupama Rao to take up the matter with U.S. authorities.