Mumbai, Nov 29 (IANS): Bollywood filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt has rubbished reports that he had approached porn star Sunny Leone to star in a film opposite his son Rahul Bhatt.

"The reports are all false. Some irresponsible journalist made up the news. But these reports don't hold any truth. Yes, in 2003, we did think of her but couldn't approach her as we didn't have the proper contact back then," Mahesh Bhatt said in an interview.

Now Bhatt has a different plan for Sunny. He will enter the "Bigg Boss 5" house Wednesday and offer Sunny the lead role in his film "Jism 2".

The 63-year-old producer-director sees no harm in using the "Bigg Boss" platform to announce his decision.

"For us publicity is not a bad word, it is our heartbeat. Everybody uses the stage to sell their product, we too are using it to simply promote our product," said Bhatt, who in his 42 years in the industry has produced films like "Arth", "Saaransh", "Zakhm", "Aashiqui" and "Tamanna".

"Jism 2" was earlier offered to Bipasha Basu and Mallika Sherawat, but things didn't work out.