We don't regret marriage prank: AM

By Subhash K Jha

Malaika Arora on the 'joke' on her marriage.

The shocking story on the end of one of filmdom's most durable marriages rocked Mumbai yesterday. Turned out, it was part of a well-planned campaign to promote a line of cosmetics.

A shocking and unethical illustration of how the media is used and manipulated to generate curiosity and interest in consumer products. Malaika Arora who was part of the campaign seemed pretty uncomfortable with the situation

What is this about your marriage in serious trouble?
Nothing. All is well in paradise. No serious or even non-serious trouble in our marriage

Let me get it straight. You did this as part of advertisement campaign?
It is part of an ad campaign for a product that Arbaaz and I are launching. Rather re-launching. See, the concept of the ad is that he comes towards the end and re-proposes to me.

What was told to the press was that Arbaaz was getting remarried. I don't know how when where they came up with the rest (of the story).

But Malaika, if you say your husband is getting re-married it wouldn't be wrong to presume that the earlier marriage is over, no?
That's what everyone has presumed.

Are you saying this was done with your approval?
Approval…well…the whole concept was of Arbaaz is getting re-married. I never thought that one concept would acquire these proportions.

Why don't you please speak to Arbaaz? He had decided to maintain a dignified silence on the campaign. But of course silence is interpreted as tacit approval.

I feel as a happily married woman it was wrong to project your marriage as jeopardized for the sake of an ad campaign
I completely agree with you. We've worked very hard to make our marriage a success. To us it's the most sacred thing in our lives. That's why we were very clear that the ad campaign shouldn't look tacky.

Of course the PR people have their way of doing things. And we definitely expressed our reservations to them.

They still went ahead with it?
Well I guess they had their PR in place, right?

Right. They got our attention. But I don't think it was right.
Speak to Arbaaz. A friend of mine sent a message saying, we always look up to your marriage as a role-model for the institution. I was inundated with calls and messages.

I guess the campaign worked, I am happy for them.

Arbaaz Khan
Arbaaz is neither too happy nor defensive about the campaign that turned his marriage to Malaika into a swift soap-opera.

"Malaika and I were asked to be part of this campaign which ran like a husband-wife story….marriage, stress separation and then finally the grand reunion…We made it clear we'd not be actively speaking to the press about the campaign.

We though the campaign would come and go and before friends and well-wishers started taking it seriously. But in no time a section of the media jumped on to the campaign line 'Arbaaz To Re-marry' and made up their own screenplay about my marriage with Malaika.

By God's grace we're very happy together and we don't need to resort to gimmicks to stay in the news. Do I regret the campaign? Not really.

We're professionals and today marketing a product entails all sorts of machinations that we as the endorsers don't have to agree with.

We had so many anxious friends contacting us to know what was going on.Honestly Malaika and I never thought it'd blow up into this unsavoury story.

We thought the campaign would be over before anyone has a chance to take it seriously.

And we never thought mediapersons would latch on to the remarriage strategy in the campaign and create a whole story about our breakup."