MOLI VIEW™

If you see Richard Gere's lips coming at you, run! That must be what Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty wishes she had done last April, when the Pretty Woman star planted one on her at a New Delhi AIDS awareness event.

Unknowingly violating section 294 of the Indian Penal Code, which prohibits public displays of obscenity, Gere, 58, swept the 32-year-old model/actress up in his arms and began kissing her face repeatedly before dipping her toward the stage. The gesture, which, as evidenced on video, clearly blindsided Shetty, caused an uproar in her native country. Images and effigies of the beloved star, and of Gere, were burned in the streets of Mumbai (Bombay) as people there decried her participation in the seemingly innocuous act.

An arrest warrant was issued for both actors following the event and Shetty, who came to international fame as the winner of the UK's Celebrity Big Brother reality show, was barred from leaving the country.

Ultimately, India's Supreme Court suspended the action. And though five months have passed since the kissing incident occurred, it appears that the regional court is not so soon to forget. On Wednesday Shetty, en route to Berlin for the opening of the musical Miss Bollywood, was detained at the Mumbai Airport by officials who had no record of the warrant's suspension. Though she was released after prolonged questioning, the experience left the star shaken. Her spokesman, Dale Bhagwagar, told the Associated Press that the actress called him "in tears."

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