That entertainment journalism has hit rock bottom in India is a fact we must sadly accept. But even by the current abysmal standards of news-worthiness, the “news” that Sunny Leone had refused to share her mobile number with Kabir Bedi tops the rank.
The news first appeared on a sensation-hungry entertainment portal which sniggeringly added that Ms Leone instead gave Kabir her husband Daniel Weber’s number. If this was not the most non-newsy entertainment news of the year, Kabir Bedi made it worse by tweeting angrily against what he described as ‘scurrilous’ news reporting.
I wonder what is so “scurrilous” about getting/not getting a telephone number?!
An actor who was present at the event where this ‘scurrilous’ incident happened (photographer Daboo Ratnani’s annual calendar launch) says, “I saw Kabir Bedi speaking to Sunny Leone and her husband. Don’t know about the exchange of phone numbers. But it is a fact that Sunny doesn’t give her number to anybody. Even the biggest of stars are given her husband’s number.”
As far as such trivia making headlines is concerned, one wonders why Kabir couldn’t ignore the seemingly baseless chitchat for what it was: inconsequential nonsense.
Kabir Bedi is one of India’s first actors to make a name for himself in international cinema with the lead in the Italian television series Sandokan and also as the turbaned villain to James Bond in Octopussy. Whether he asked for Sunny Leone’s number or not, is irrelevant. What is relevant is, does this kind of reportage and rejoinder befit his stature?