Posted on 04/27/2007 12:22:04 PM PDT by Anti-MSM
Actor Richard Gere has apologised for causing offence when he kissed Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty.
The incident, at an AIDS awareness event in Delhi, prompted public protests and then an arrest warrant for both stars over the "obscene act".
Gere, 57, said he had misread Indian customs and that he regretted any problems he had caused Shetty.
He asked for the "media circus" to end and hoped it would not detract from the message of preventing AIDS.
Gere kissed Shetty, 31, several times on the cheek while sweeping her backwards in a tango-style move.
The court in Jaipur in Rajasthan state called it "an obscene act" after a local lawyer filed a complaint.
Gere said: "What is most important to me is that my intentions as an HIV/AIDS advocate be made clear, and that my friends in India understand that it has never been, nor could it ever be, my intention to offend you.
I've felt terrible that (Shetty) should carry a burden that is no fault of hers.
Richard Gere "If that has happened, of course it is easy for me to offer a sincere apology."
Gere had earlier taken a tougher line, saying he expected any charge to be dismissed.
Speaking on The Daily Show With Jon Stewart, the actor said the situation as "nothing".
"There is a very small right-wing, very conservative political party in India and they are the moral police in India... they do this kind of thing quite often," he said.
A judge had ordered Shetty to appear in his court on 5 May, saying she did nothing to resist the kiss, which he called "highly sexually erotic".
Gere said Shetty was not to blame for the incident.
"I've felt terrible that she should carry a burden that is no fault of hers," he said.
Photographs of the clinch were splashed across front pages of newspapers in India.
Public displays of affection are still largely taboo in India, and protestors in Mumbai (Bombay) set fire to effigies of Gere following the incident.
Shetty has defended Gere saying that it was all done "in good humour".
Under Indian law, a person convicted of public obscenity faces up to three months in prison, a fine or both.
Gere, star of films such as Chicago and Pretty Woman, is a Buddhist and travels to India frequently to visit the Dalai Lama, who lives in exile in the north of the country.
What is the problem here?
Hindu extremists had everything to do with it, Gengis, and you know it.
He’s getting really Shetty treatment, but wht do ou expect from Hindustan?
India needs to lighten up. It was a f*cking kiss. It’s not like he bent her over and did her in the @ss on TV.
This is a good oppurtunity for propangists like you not?
But I bet there is a god-form of Vishnu for that.
As a bhudist he should know that women are Chattle.
Pray for W and Our Troops
Now that's what I call a purpose driven church!
ROFL! Thanks, I needed that!
LOL
WOW! That was pretty funny.
From the country that produced the Kama Sutra...
How times change.
As I said, I don’t see what the problem is. I also don’t think the story is very important in the scheme of things, except that it illustrates again the primitive values of the religious tyranny there.
I think it has nothing to do with religious tyranny of one religion per se. One must remember what Christian extremists did during the screening of a movie not so long ago in India. Its a cultural thing and God are we progressive, less stuck up people in India are so ashamed of these idiots.
Including the courts....which century are we living in if a kiss gets blown out of proportion, when there enough kissing in Bollywood movies for God’s sake. This section of the society needs to grow up!
"Now, kiss my white a**."
Maybe so, but this incident shows the folly of multiculturalism in most extreme form. I heard Gere commenting about this court order and a "group of very right wing extremists” in India. By definition, Gere is criticizing them on the basis of his standards of liberal Western thought. One cannot simultaneously hold that all cultures are equally valid and then demand others comport with your ideas of acceptable thought.
Well neither do I, but laws are laws even if they were written by the British some hundred years ago and nobody bothered to change it. Every country has some weird laws and when you are in some foreign land you make sure you dont try to be a jack ass and break those laws no matter how weird.
“primitive values of the religious tyranny there.”
It has nothing to with religious tyranny but more to do with Victorian era laws. Nevertheless it gives propagandist low-lives like you a good opportunity to smear India. BTW Gere can thank himself he didn't go to Saudi Arabia or Pakistan (the land of your paymasters) or else he would have returned home a eunuch if at all they leave him alive. You need to learn what exactly is religious tyranny.
You’re quite the one-note samba, even though you know that what you say ids absolutely false. But keep it up; I’m sure the rewards for your disinformation are great.
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