Akshay Kumar is a no-nonsense man. He prefers calling a spade a spade, but when it comes to matters of the government and their functioning, he’s extremely touchy. Also because of his leniency towards the government, sometimes Akshay’s judgments do get clouded by several thoughts. Now, one such incident has caused a huge rift in his two-decade-long friendship with Shabina Khan.
Shabina and Akshay have teamed up for ‘Laxmmi Bomb‘ which was supposed to release this Eid, alongside Salman Khan’s ‘Radhe’. But it’s unlikely for the film to hit the marquee on that day, since all theatres are shut and will continue to remain so, for the next few months until there’s normalcy again. We hear that despite shooting the film with a lot of fun and happiness, all things aren’t well between Shabina and Akki. The two buddies are now upset about each other’s political allegiances.
While Akki is a right-wing nationalist, Shabina detests the current government and is known to be extremely vocal about her opinions. She had been constantly tweeting and expressing her displeasure over the government’s failure at handling the Covid-19 situation in the country. That left Akshay fuming because he felt that all this will have a domino effect on his next release and given his business acumen, he immediately called her up and fired her. The situation between them became so tense that everyone else was worried about the fate of ‘Laxmmi Bomb’.
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Despite the frantic calls, her tweets didn’t stop and Akshay made a final warning to her and told her that he won’t be part of promotions or have anything to do with the project anymore. Such is luck that now, the film will directly release on Hotstar and the makers have already sold the film to the OTT platform.
We hear that despite Akshay being a huge star, the initial conversations with STAR had begun without his approval or consent. Eventually, he gave up and told his close friends that he’s got nothing to do with the film anymore. Their friendship of over two decades stand at its tumultuous worst and what is worrying is that the other producer of the film, Tusshar Kapoor, has been caught in between his two friends. Everyone’s trying to calm each other down but to no avail. Especially, Shabina is known to be fierce and highly opinionated about her choices and she’s extremely clear that she won’t be tomtoming about the government just because of her superstar friend’s loyalty towards it. A source shares, “Shabina told a common friend that if that’s the logic and condition of friendship, Akshay and Twinkle shouldn’t have even stayed together because they have different viewpoints on politics as well.”
While ‘Laxmmi Bomb’ is apparently being released on Hotstar now, what stands cancelled is their next venture together which they had agreed on. Akshay and Shabina had become even closer buddies during ‘Rowdy Rathore’ and they were already planning a sequel. The source further adds, “That definitely doesn’t seem like happening at all now. Unless Sanjay Leela Bhansali cuts off ties with Shabina on the film and flies solo with Akshay, ‘Rowdy Rathore 2’ will not take off. In case, they patch up, then it again might. Akshay is also upset because before he signed ‘Laxmmi Bomb’, which happens to be the remake of ‘Kanchana’, the producer had approached other actors including Ajay Devgn who clearly declined the project because they didn’t want to play a transgender and wear a sari in the film. Akshay had stepped in and elevated the film and given it a different status for Shabina and he’s extremely miffed with her right now.”
But then again, this is Bollywood. Yahan kuch bhi ho sakta hai. As they say, there aren’t permanent friends or enemies in B-Town!
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