NEW DELHI - Richard Gere tried to quell the storm over a public kiss he gave a Bollywood star at an AIDS awareness event, apologizing Friday for any offense.
Gere’s embrace and kiss of actress Shilpa Shetty sparked several noisy demonstrations by hard-line Hindu groups and a flurry of legal complaints, which ended with a judge in the northwestern city of Jaipur issuing an arrest warrant for the two stars for violating obscenity laws.
“What is most important to me is that my intentions as an HIV/AIDS advocate be made clear, and that my friends in India understand that it has never been, nor could it ever be, my intention to offend you,” Gere said in statement issued by the Heroes Project, an organization the actor co-founded to combat AIDS in India.
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The embrace, in front of about 4,000 truckers, was a failed parody of a move from Gere’s film “Shall We Dance” and “a naive misread of Indian customs,” he said.
Gere had earlier taken a harder tone, hitting back at a small group who had complained.
April 26: A warrant for Richard Gere's arrest is issued in India after the actor kisses a famous 'Bollywood' star. Protestors call the gesture obscene. MSNBC.
com's Dara Brown reports.
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