star PRs

While stars shout themselves hoarse about keeping their personal spaces private, they shell out hefty pay cheques to PRs who work overtime to ensure their client is hogging the headlines every day.

From their 'alleged' link-ups to their 'break-ups' and 'rivalry' and 'chemistry', the PR team glorifies every aspect of a star's life, to help keep the star in the news.

How does Priyanka Chopra's friendship with 'Mad Men' star John Hamm become public knowledge? Or how does Shahid Kapoor build his 'eligible bachelor' image and get linked with Nargis Fakhri, Bipasha Basu, Priyanka Chopra back-to-back?

Industry insiders term these smart strategies as PR gimmicks.

"Kareena Kapoor dumped Shahid. It could have had an adverse effect on the actor's image. So to retain his 'star' status and not let his break up affect his viability, link ups were staged. With that came the pictures of his weekend birthday bash in Goa with a bunch of girls and boys that started doing the rounds and helped him create a Casanova image for himself," revealed a source close to Shahid's management.

Industry watchers also say that this is the same strategy that helped Ranveer Singh stay in the spotlight despite not having a film in more than year and half.

"What 'Band Baaja Baarat' and 'Ladies vs Ricky Bahl' couldn't do, his self-proclaimed love for four strong actresses — Anushka Sharma, Sonakshi Sinha, Kareena Kapoor and Deepika Padukone did!" a trade expert comments.

Deepika remained in the news for a year after the release of 'Om Shanti Om' for her liaison with cricketers Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Yuvraj Singh, until Ranbir Kapoor happened.