Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Hrithik Roshan were considered as one of the hottest couples in Bollywood after they appeared in Dhoom 2 in 2006, the second instalement of Yash Raj Films' popular franchise Dhoom. But their popularity soon snowballed into a huge controversy after they shared a passionate lip lock which not only rocked Aishwarya but the Bachchan family as well along with millions of her fans.
As soon as the movie hit the theatres online, people had started murmuring about Hrithik and Aishwarya's kissing scene which is still etched in the hearts and minds of the audience. It was Aishwarya's first ever kiss on screen and she was unable to understand the hullabaloo over her kissing act as it was not the first kiss to be seen on the celluloid.
It was said that the Bachchan family was never in agreement with Aishwarya to give her nod to the kissing scene before her marriage with Abhishek Bachchan. It was believed that Abhishek had even stopped speaking to Hrithik after he saw them passionately kissing on the silver screen.
It was also being said that the Bachchan family was trying hard to get clean image for Aishwarya before she could marry Abhishek in 2007. The Bachchans had reportedly asked Yash Raj Films to chop off the scene in which their soon-to-be daughter-in-law was seen performing a bold smooch with Hrithik.
Back then, Dhoom 2 director Sanjay Gadhvi, had kept mum and refused to comment on the matter and said that the controversy surrounding the much-talked about kissing scene didn't affect his relations with the big production banner.
Later, in 2012, when Aishwarya was asked about the reactions on her first ever onscreen kiss and what she had to go through, the Miss World 1994 had revealed that she had two thoughts about signing Dhoom 2 because of the lip lock scene. She had said that the scene cause such a uproar among her fans that she received legal threats after the movie was released in theatres.
"I did it once prominently in the movie Dhoom and it was so topical, and you'll be surprised, I mean I actually got a couple of notices, legal notices, from some people in the country turning around and saying 'You are iconic, you're an example to our girls, you have led your life in such an exemplary manner, they're not comfortable with you doing this on screen so why did you?'" Aishwarya had told Daily Mail during an interaction.
"And I was like wow, I'm just an actor, doing my job, and here I am being asked to offer an explanation for a couple of seconds in a two, three hour piece of cinema," she added.
Aishwarya said that before signing Dhoom 2, she had rejected a couple of Hollywood offers "purely on the basis of not being comfortable with the physical scenes and the kissing" as she had never done it and wasn't even comfortable with the idea.
"And I was quite sure even my audience was not very comfortable with me doing it on-screen... but I still said okay, if I have to go down this path let me first do it in our cinema, in an Indian piece of cinema, and let me see if all my doubts are true, and they were," Aishwarya further added.
