Hot From My Filmfare Diary by Bitchy Bee

Bitchy Bee
This isn’t a saas bahu serial, so change the channel if you’re weak-hearted. Because you’re sure to find something written about yourself among these not-so-sweet words. Don’t consider this gossip, consider this knowledge!

Friday, Mar 07, 2008
Here is some honey from the recently concluded Filmfare awards.

Dress Distress

I was sitting right there in the front row as Vidya Balan shocked the entire world with her ghastly orange Abu Jani-Sandeep Khosla outfit. Shame shame. But that you know. What you don’t know is that both Preity Zinta and Priyanka Chopra have not yet returned the stunning evening gowns they acquired from Alberta Ferretti and Jean Paul Gaultier respectively, as yet! Note to self: It’s been almost two weeks since the awards.

And Kangana’s see-through outfit was a direct copy of an Italian designer garment, courtesy her personal stylist Rick Roy. Sweet.

Seat Feat

Now, as I said, while I had a front row seat marked for me, quite a few of the Bollywood bimbos were made to sit as far as the seventh row! Like Deepika Padukone, for example. And even Neil Nitin Mukesh. In fact, his dad, Nitin Mukesh was pushed all the way in the back and was seen grumbling about his seat. Pooja Bedi and Hanif Hilal kicked up a huge fuss about their central seating and finally sat with dad in the fourth or fifth row. Narendra Kumar Ahmed and girlfriend Kadambari quietly sat in their central seats assigned to them. As did Sapna and Anjali Mukherjee. And while Priyanka Chopra came in late and couldn’t find her seat, Times of India’s Vineet Jain came to her rescue and made her squeeze in next to him. Quite a front page headline, that one! Of course, the lesson on how to sit in the first two rows has to be learnt from Madhur Bhandarkar. He and wife Renu were shown their seats somewhere in the obscure middle but they sat firmly on some empty seats in the second row. “But sir, these seats are reserved for the sponsors,” a hapless usher told him. “We’ll see,” was the firm retort.

Another seat feat was how Kareena Kapoor sat and got along fine with brother-in-law Sanjay Kapur, who, sources say, she really dislikes.

Reward Rejoinder

As I sat there, I heard someone say that apparently, Rishi Kapoor, when told by Filmfare that he was getting the Lifetime Achievement award this year, retorted, “Pay me for making an appearance at the awards.” What? “Yes, pay me. If we come, we will be endorsing your sponsor, Fairone, free of cost, so pay me and I’ll come.” Well, Rishi Kapoor turned up with family at the awards, but I’m not sure whether the award itself was the incentive alone…

While on the subject of his award, before she went up on stage to present the award to him, Dimple Kapadia was nervous and asked one of the backstage helpers for a cigarette. Oh, and get this. When Amrita Rao was told she had to present a technical award, she flatly refused! The organizers offered her another award to present, which she also refused. Finally, her tantrums worked and she went up and presented, much to the shock of all, Best Director award!

Moolah Rouge

Okay, so when it comes to brass tacks, apparently, SRK got paid a hefty 1.75 crores for his lip service that night. Saif got paid a little less than that while Karan Johar… did his bit… for FREE.