Indian star Bachchan denies ceremony to rid Aishwarya Rai of curse

0 Comments | AFP, March, 2007

NEW DELHI (AFP) — Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan has denied reports that his family performed Hindu religious ceremonies to lift a curse from Bollywood actress Aishwarya Rai who is engaged to marry his son.

"Nothing like this ever took place," the actor told this week's edition of the Indian magazine "The Week," calling the widespread media accounts of the ceremonies "intrusive and insensitive."

The marriage of former Miss World Rai and movie heart-throb Abhishek Bachchan is expected to be Bollywood's biggest wedding in years, but no official date has been announced.

Last November the family travelled with Rai to a temple on the banks of the sacred river Ganges in the holy Hindu city of Varanasi for what the Indian media reported were prayers to clear...