Shiney Ahuja in More Trouble: Made Passes at Sayali Bhagat and Director of Mary Magdalene
Shiney Ahuja has been awarded seven years imprisonment by the court now, but in the time frame between his arrests after the rape till the court sentence, Bollywood had avoided him. However, one lady, Puja Jatinder Bedi, debut director of Mary Magdalene, had decided to give him a second chance. But according to her, this act of good nature backfired because he still had not mended his ways.
Bedi says that Shiny is no shining example of good behavior; he had been nasty with women on the sets and had even made a pass at her. She said that he put her at unease by insisting that she accompany him to his room to discuss the film in private. “He would call me in and send the rest of the unit out. He even tried to hug me a couple of times and I had to be firm in my refusal.”
Puja has also alleged that Shiny’s vile ways continued as he started making passes at Sayali Bhagat and made inappropriate comments on her clothes and looks. Bedi says, ‘For a scene in a coffee shop, he told me he needed to hold hands with her for a while to feel the energy and warmth.’ Sayali agrees, “He held my hand, took me to a corner and talked about how he did the scenes with Kangna and Shilpa. My mother stayed with me through the shooting because of his suspicious behaviour. He misbehaved with others, including Puja.”
Bedi who has worked as a line producer for films like Saathiya and Mangal Pandey says, “The day a crucial scene was being shot Shiney left without informing us and even left his driver behind. When we called him, he said he had taken his make-up woman to the hospital because she wasn’t well.” She goes on to add, “On the last day of the shoot, Shiney disappeared with a 17 year old girl who had a small role in the film.” The director discovered this when the girl’s mother called one of the assistant directors to find out her whereabouts.
Shiney, allegedly even pushed Bedi when she asked him to get into a costume because it was late and they were behind schedule. Shiney plays a detective in this horror film. The director still has a lot to say about the actor’s philandering ways, “He wasted a lot of time on the sets cosying up with his Russian co-star Julia. He had to kiss her for a scene. But his wife Anupam called me and said it would affect his image. Soon after we shot the scene in a bikini, he invited her to his room for a drink. This was followed by intimacy and childish banter on set. Shiney would spend hours chatting up good-looking female extras.”
Shiney, Puja says, made working with him a case of ‘mental molestation’. Bedi said that she had decided to take Shiney because the actor who was cast earlier had ditched the project on the day of the Mahurat of the film. “We had been asked by a friend of Shiney’s, who was out of jail and not doing anything, to meet him. He had not been convicted then and we gave him the benefit of doubt,” she said. “But he came to the sets two hours late on the very first day and left by afternoon. He said he had to rush back to Delhi to take care of legalities. But his lawyer had told him to mark his presence at Delhi Police station before the start of shoot.”
The film was shot on the outskirts of Mumbai due to the court’s order that he should not be anywhere in Mumbai. The director adds, “With his daily tantrums and attitude we were losing time and money. The film had gone over-budget by nearly a week, escalating costs by Rs 50 lakh.He behaved unethically with us when we were giving him a chance to resurrect his career.
When questioned about why Puja did not bother to inform about this to Anupam, Shiney’s wife; she says the actor’s wife is a nice lady and ‘professional’. But she adds, We told her about his amorous ways but she didn’t bother checking him. We asked her to stay on but she didn’t.”
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