Richard Gere: In Hot Water Over Forcing a Kiss on Shilpa Shetty

Allie @ Gone Hollywood | Monday, April 16, 2007

He may have a reputation as a ladies man – but Richard Gere is now public enemy number one in India. Maybe he should have stopped with kissing her hand.

Effigies of the Hollywod actor have been burned after he repeatedly kissed Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty at an AIDS awareness event.

He had joined Shetty, the winner of the “Celebrity Big Brother” in a safe sex campaign for lorry drivers.

The 58-year-old shouted in Hindi to thousands of truck drivers who roared with delight and whistled loudly as Gere swooped down to kiss Shetty to kiss her on her hand and a number of times on one side of her face.

But it started to go wrong when groups of men turned on him and started shouting “Down with Richard Gere”.

They burnt the Hollywood star’s effigies and kicked the smoking remains in the northern Indian cities of Kanpur, Meerut and Varanasi as well as in the central city of Indore.

The protesters said Gere’s kissing of Shilpa was against Indian culture.

Some burnt Shetty’s posters, shouting “Death to Shilpa Shetty”, and danced around the smouldering ashes, TV footage showed.

The kissing scenes were repeatedly being run on TV news channels with viewers commenting on the Hollywood star’s actions.

Others said there was too much fuss over a few kisses.

“I think he responded as an actor. He was playing to the gallery,” said Anjali Gopalan, head of Naz Foundation India, an anti-AIDS prevention and care group.

“I don’t see anything bad,” she said on Headlines Today television.

Shetty’s spokesman said TV networks were going overboard.

“The media should concentrate on promotion of the cause of AIDS awareness rather than make ‘issues’ out of Richard Gere’s kisses,” Dale Bhagwagar said.

source via dlisted

Richard Gere: In Hot Water Over Forcing a Kiss on Shilpa Shetty

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