Mumbai: Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty is once again in the eye of a storm. “I don’t want us to look like idiots in front of the foreign media,” says Shilpa. The actress lashed out at the media in Vashi, Navi Mumbai from the sets of her forthcoming film Metro. “I didn’t understand what was happening. And then I saw everything being blown out of proportion on TV. I am not allowed to work, my entire shooting has been disrupted,” says Shilpa. And right outside the sets were protestors shouting slogans and burning effigies of Hollywood actor Richard Gere.
The reason for Shilpa's outburst and the mobs protests was a star-studded event in Delhi meant to raise AIDS awareness on Sunday night. But a series overenthusiastic hugs and kisses from Gere to Shilpa have snowballed into a controversy of sorts. By Monday morning the kiss evoked sporadic protests in parts of Varanasi, Kanpur, Bhopal and Ranchi where some groups burnt effigies of the actors.
The controversy forced Shilpa to call for a press conference in the evening to give her side of the story. “Richard Gere called me three times since the morning to apologise and said that he didn’t want to hurt the sentiments of Indian people.
And if he did, he is sorry. We went there for a cause. Richard doesn’t belong to our country, and he is so passionate about the cause,” says Shilpa. Meanwhile, Gere is reportedly out of India, but was reportedly concerned about the controversy his harmless kiss has caused.
