Richard Gere planting some playful kisses on Indian star Shilpa Shetty has touched off a whole firestorm of controversy. But Gere himself says the whole thing was no big deal, and that those who want him jailed over it represent a small but vocal minority. Said Gere on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart:
Kissing the girl on the cheek was nothing. ... It was an AIDS event for truck drivers. It was the largest truck depot in South Asia. They were climbing on their trucks [cheering].
Shetty herself was not offended. Says Gere:
We went and had dinner afterwards and nobody said a word about this.
Shit, Richard - don't tell them you had dinner with her. They'll probably tack another six months onto the sentence.
But seriously, says Richard, the whole thing is just a bunch of political radicals making noise:
There is a very small right-wing conservative party and they are the moral police in India and they do this quite often. ... I don't know if anyone has gone to jail, but [a case like this generally] goes to a reputable court and is thrown out.
So they have reputable courts in India. Well, that's good news.
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