Being a celebrity can have its downside and Bipasha Basu discovered this rather rudely recently when an ad shot in 1999, which has her gloriously au naturel surfaced on You Tube. The ad, which shows her as a Rajasthani bride getting ready for her wedding to Vivek Oberoi, was released in New York in 1999 to advertise for a lottery whose tag line read ‘All you need is a dollar and a dream’. In the course of getting dressed, Bipasha is shown nude, looking over her shoulder in a way that exposes her breast and as a shimmering dupatta is draped over her, she is seen from the back, entirely nude.
Bipasha is aghast at the mischievious mind responsible for unearthing the ad (which was never released in India) and posting it on the site. Not denying that it is her in the ad she says, “In 1999, I was a model living in the USA and that is where I wanted to make my career. I was young and naïve and when I was told to turn towards the camera in the pose that eventually is in the ad, I did not understand anything about angles. In those days there was no monitor on the sets and I had no idea what was shot.”“Becoming an actor was not something I had even thought of,” she continues. “I was a kid in bohemia. Today as a mature woman working in India, I would never do such a shoot, not because I have double standards, but because such shots are just not part of our sensibility. It isn’t cool here.” Asked whether a body double was used, Bipasha laughed and pointed out that she remembers someone being there but she has no idea if it was her body double. “I have a very short memory and cannot remember anything that happened more than three years ago. Honestly, I don’t remember anything specific about shooting the ad.” The specifics are out now. Further defending the ad, she says, “It is a beautiful ad and I look great in it. It’s neither sleazy nor a porn. I am proud of the way I look in it.”
