AFP
Sydney, May 3: Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty on Thursday blamed India's 'lunatic fringe' for an uproar over enthusiastic kisses bestowed on her by Hollywood heart-throb Richard Gere at an AIDS charity event.
An Indian court last week issued a warrant of arrest for Gere on charges of "obscene" behaviour after the televised embrace in which the star bent Shetty backwards on stage and kissed her repeatedly.
The incident triggered a public storm in India, known for its chaste public behaviour despite Bollywood's sexually suggestive song-and-dance routines.
Radical Hindus burned effigies of the 57-year-old Gere in India's entertainment hub of Mumbai and organised street rallies in New Delhi.
But Shetty, 31, who is in Australia to promote her latest film, said the kisses had been "blown out of all proportion" and Gere "was just being very sweet."
"The media tends to get slightly irresponsible at times but that's the price one has to pay for celebrity," she said.
"The majority of Indians don't feel that way. It was the lunatic fringe that took over.
"This whole moral brigade got some momentum and some people who had political affiliations got some mileage out of it as well from my profile, and Richard's."
Gere issued a "sincere apology" for any offence he caused a day after the furore erupted; saying the way he kissed Shetty was a move from his movie 'Shall We Dance.'
Shilpa Shetty in hometown earlier week:
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