Gere says "end the circus" over India public kiss

MUMBAI, Saturday (Reuters) - Asking the media "to end the circus", Hollywood star Richard Gere said yesterday that his kissing of Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty was due to his failure to understand local culture.

An Indian court, acting on a complaint by a local lawyer, described the kiss as an obscene act in public and ordered Gere's arrest. The kiss sparked sporadic protests in India.

Gere twirled Shetty in his arms, arched her over and kissed her several times on the cheek at an event in New Delhi last week to promote AIDS awareness among Indian truckers. Gere has since left India.

"My clumsy attempt at a 'Shall We Dance' dance move was a naive misread of Indian customs," Gere said in statement addressed to "my dear Indian friends" and issued by an AIDS charity he is associated with.

"To be honest, this recent media storm has taken me by complete surprise. "End the circus around this episode," he said.

The 57-year-old "Pretty Woman" star's posters and straw effigies were burnt in protest in some parts of India, mostly by Hindu vigilante groups, who saw it as an outrage against Shetty's modesty and an affront to Indian culture.

Shetty, the winner of the "Celebrity Big Brother" reality TV show in Britain this year, had said the kiss may have gone a "little overboard" but it was not obscene and the protests made India look regressive.

Many commentators expressed unhappiness at what they said were fringe groups making a major issue out of a harmless peck on the cheek.

Gere said it was not his intention to offend anybody and described the charity event as an evening of celebrating courageous people associated with the fight against HIV/AIDS in India, which has the world's highest HIV caseload.

Although Gere, who also starred in "An Officer and a Gentleman", could face three months in jail or a fine or both for such an offence, he told a U.S. cable channel on Thursday that he did not know anyone who had gone to jail for something like this.

"Me kissing the girl on the cheek was nothing," Gere told cable channel Comedy Central's "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" in New York where he was promoting his latest film, "The Hoax".

Gere, a devout Buddhist, visits India frequently to meet the Dalai Lama, who lives in exile in northern India, and is a vocal supporter of the Tibetan cause as well as being involved with charities dealing with AIDS and orphans in the country.