Rani Mukerji is one such actor who has made a handful of close friends with several of her colleagues from Bollywood with her bubbly personality. Of them, one of the closest bonds she had was with none other than Aishwarya Rai. Despite being top of the league contemporary actresses, they graced the silver screen having no animosity among each other. However, their equation changed forever when the latter did not invite Rani to her wedding with Abhishek Bachchan. Well, let's move back in time and revisit what went wrong between the two.
In a generation where most leading Bollywood actresses were tagged as carrying a smouldering outlook against one another, Aishwarya Rai and Rani Mukerji proved to be altogether different. From knowing each other personally to gelling with one another off-screen, the duo shared quite an uncommon bond. In an interview, Rani had praised Aishwarya and had mentioned:
“We are always civil to each other. If I see her, I'll definitely wish her. She's a fabulous actor from my generation."
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Aishwarya Rai and Abhishek Bachchan’s wedding in 2007 was one of the greatest lavish ceremonies the nation had ever witnessed back then. However, while Aishwarya-Abhishek had invited many people from the Hindi film industry to their wedding, it seems that they missed out on inviting their close friend, Rani Mukerji. While this gesture was taken note by many, it particularly hurt Rani since she expected to be invited for the wedding of her best friends. In an interview back then, the Saathiya actress once mentioned:
“Only Abhishek can throw light on that. The truth is that if a person chooses not to invite you to their wedding, you realise where you stand with the person. You may be deluded and think you are friends but maybe the friendship was only restricted to being co-stars on the sets. However, it doesn't matter now. It became very clear and evident that we were only co-actors and not friends. Moreover inviting someone to a wedding is a personal choice. Tomorrow when I decide to get married, I will choose the handful of people I want to invite."
Well, while neither Aishwarya Rai Bachchan nor Abhishek Bachchan have ever divulged the reasons behind not inviting Rani Mukerji to their wedding, there have been a few speculated theories behind the same. A more popular one of them goes by the fact that since Rani Mukerji had replaced Aishwarya Rai for the iconic SRK film, Chalte Chalte, the former Miss World was seemingly upset by such betrayal by her close friend. Moreover, she was also annoyed by the hero, Shah Rukh Khan himself since he was the one to order her to be sacked from the project after her then-boyfriend, Salman Khan had damaged the sets of the film.
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Another of the theories which strongly buzzed behind the reason of Rani being left out of the guest list of Abhishek-Aishwarya’s wedding was the rumour of her serious relationship with Abhishek himself. For the unversed, after Abhishek called off his engagement with Karisma Kapoor, the Dus actor had reportedly fallen in love with Rani Mukerji. Moreover, their relationship had gotten so strong with time that even the families were more than happy for their union in marriage. But it did not happen so.
The thought of getting sacked at workplace due to personal reasons is something no individual ever wants. However, Aishwarya Rai had to face such kind of humiliation when despite being an over-achieving, seasoned actress, she was replaced by one of her contemporaries. In an interview with Simi Garewal, Aishwarya had once opened up about her feelings when she got replaced as the main lead in the film, Chalte Chalte by Rani Mukerji. In her words:
“See, at the time, when you have no explanation, you’re obviously completely taken aback, and confused, and hurt. You wonder about it. If a person feels a need to explain it, they will. If they never did, they never intend to. So, it’s not in my nature to get into questioning what and why. Probably within myself, but I wouldn’t go up to a person and ask why. By the grace of God, I’m not defined by the other."
What do you think about Rani Mukerji being left uninvited at the wedding of Aishwarya Rai and Abhishek Bachchan?
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