Aishwarya Rai admits to being a victim of domestic violence at Cannes

Aishwarya Rai, the bollywood beauty was the cynosure of all eyes at the Cannes film festival and the beautiful actress did not disappoint. She shined and dazzled all around her with her confidence and beauty. However it was also here at Cannes that Ash’s deep buried wounds resurfaced once again. Ash made an appearance for her film ‘Provoked’ which is a true life event of a woman who was the victim of domestic violence for ten long painful years. Miss Rai was seen promoting the film along with real life protagonist Kiranjit Ahluwalia. Ash also confirmed that she was the victim of domestic violence, but did not elaborate on the painful incident in her life.

It is a well-known fact that the sensuous Miss Rai was dating bollywood bad boy Salman Khan a few years back. Salman and Ash shared a strange relationship, a love-hate relation that was the talk of the town. Salman was also known to physically and emotionally abuse his previous girlfriends. Salman was known to be extremely possessive of his then lady love Ash. Friends and relatives of Ash too revealed that many a times he would physically assault her. However one fine day when things went overboard and Ash could no longer deal with it anymore, she walked out of the relationship and also admitted to the media and public that she was a victim of domestic violence in her relationship with Salman. However Ash since then has never spoken about the pain, guilt or anger of her past volatile relationship or the reasons for her sticking it out so long.

Now after a few years, with the release of her film on domestic violence, Ash has once again spoken about the issue where she was a victim of physical abuse. Ash replied to the media at Cannes where she was promoting her film “Have I experienced it? Yeah”. However that is the only reference that Miss Rai made to her personal experience. She further went on to state that she had done the film not for personal reasons, but in order to give a voice to all the Kirans that we were aware of. Aishwarya also admitted to being disturbed when she was enacting out the nerve wreaking role of an abused woman.

Director of the film Jagmohan Mundhra confirmed that Ash had mentioned to the press at Cannes that she was a victim of domestic violence, but he also stated that she did not give the details of her experience. About playing the protagonist in his film, Mundhra says “I owe this film entirely to Aishwarya, without her go ahead I would have had problems with cast and funding. The film would not have been made.” Ash plays an extremely different role in this film, for the first time the actress who has always played glamorous roles, adapted herself to play the role of a non-glamorous house wife. She has internalized the character to portray the role of a brutally battered housewife.

At the Cannes, when Ahluwalia the woman whose true life story this film is based on was reluctant to take a public stand and re-live those terrible times by watching the film premiere, it was Ash who convinced Kiran to watch the film. Ash later on said “I didn’t meet Kiranjt before accepting the film. I didn’t want to get influenced in my performance. But the film is finally a triumphant fable of her struggle and victory against her oppression.”