The Shetty hits the fan for Richard Gere

Miscellaneous TV

By Tabloid Baby | Monday, April 16, 2007 | 1:00 pm | 2 Comments

A gerbil is one thing, but Richard Gere should know better than to tangle with Shilpa Shetty. Mess with her and they’ll be hanging you in effigy and beating you with sticks, as right-wing Hindus and people who paid money to see Shall We Dance are doing today in cities across India.
As you can see above, wacky grey Gere’s Viagra and whatever else was in the cocktail kicked in at an HIV/AIDS awareness event last night, leading him to start kissing Shilpa– onstage– in public. And as we’re all aware– and as you’d figure Asian devotee Gere would know– sex and public displays of affection are taboo in India.

We also know that you don’t mess with Shilpa. She might have as much name recognition as David Beckham here in the States, but in the UK, she’s a volatile reality TV combination of Padma Lakshmi and Sanjaya.
Shilpa won the Celebrity Big Brother UK competition in January, with 63% of the public vote- but not before sparking an international scandal–and riots in the streets– when she was the target of alleged racial bullying from a fellow contestants.

In this case, she was the target of Gere’s smooching. The actor kissed her on the on the hand, then kissed her on both cheeks, bent her in a full embrace and kissed her cheek again. Okay! We get it! He’s not gay!

Today, Shilpa tried to calm things down, telling a news agency: “I understand this is his culture, not ours. But this was not such a big thing or so obscene for people to overreact in such manner. I don’t want a foreigner to take bad memories from here.”

–Tabloid Baby

2 Comments

  1. 1
    eightyschica
    Posted April 18, 2007 at 7:58 pm

    Then why bother reading it? You’re ruining this site with your comments.

  2. 2
    Scott
    Posted April 22, 2007 at 7:16 pm

    For a society who has been deeply damaged by colonialism can one think of a more offensive image of a white guy grabbing a daughter of India and forcing himself upon her? It is so symbolic. It is right in line with the image of the white colonist forcing himself upon a country and just taking whatever he wants.

    Richard Gere should pay the ultimate price for this.

    What bothers me however is those who would blame Shilpa Shetty for this.

    Too often women victims of rape in India are blamed for what happened like they wanted the rape to happen or it was their fault the rape happened even when the truth might be that the rapists brutalized them and they couldn’t stop the rape from happening.

    While of course Richard Gere didn’t actually rape Shilpa Shetty, I still see this whole “Blame the Woman Victim” dynamic in place. From what I saw from the video Shilpa Shetty did nothing to cause Richard Gere to act the way he did, and was in fact as shocked as everyone else was that he would act in such a disgraceful manner.

    We need to defend this daughter of India, not blame her for this white man’s assault upon her.

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