http://www.magnamags.com/index.php/201002265785/stardust/scoop-of-the-day/aishwarya-rai-big-b-abhi-not-at-filmfare-award-courtesy-shah-rukh-khan.html
Heard this?? Aishwarya Rai, the daughter-in-law of Amitabh Bachchan and wife of Abhishek Bachchan, will not be performing at the Filmfare awards despite of taking Rs 85 lakhs in this regard.
The buzz doing the rounds in the industry is that Aishwarya Rai, Amitabh Bachchan and Abhishek Bachchan will not attend the function in retaliation to news reports about Bachchan bahu pregnancy. Sources close to Bachchans say that Aishwarya was furious and is in no mood to relent on the issue despite of several attempts from the concerned media house. The chances are that Amitabh Bachchan, Abhishek Bachchan and Jaya Bachchan, too, will not be attending the award function this year in support of Aishwarya Rai's rightful cause. They are said to be fully in support of Ash in the matter and will stand by her in the stand off with the media house.
However, another theory doing the rounds in the industry is that Big B and other Bachchans might be making a mountain out of a mole just to avoid going to award function as Shah Rukh Khan and Saif Ali Khan had been roped in to host the function. The memories of the past tiff with SRK at the same function held some years ago still haunt the Bachchans and close friend Amar Singh.
In any case, Aishwarya Rai has not been performing on stage after her marriage with Abhishek Bachchan and this was one of those rarest shows that she had agreed to do the honor. But after the fracas with the paper, now she will not be even attending the function.
However, Bachchans have a history of major tiffs with the media. Even Amitabh Bachchan had banned media from the sets of his films for a long time after he felt that he was being unfairly targeted for the imposition of curbs on newspapers during the emergency imposed by then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. At that time, Amitabh was considered very close to Gandhi family (Rajiv Gandhi was his close friend).
This time it is Aishwarya Rai who has banned a particular media house and even refused to attend its award function. There may be grievances but the fact of the matter is that if media needs celebrities; these famous people need media even more to sustain their celebrity status in the long run.
6