Preity Zinta has always spoken of the many friendships she shares in Bollywood. Her list of friends included Abhishek Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai, Yuvraj Singh, Salman Khan, Saif Ali Khan, among others. Preity has also publicly voiced her opinions when it came to supporting her friends.
A recent incident comes to mind when Preity made her displeasure known in the Alia Bhatt Jokes issue. Preity had mentioned strongly, "Now that Alia has worked hard and become successful people make fun of her. They have these Alia Bhatt jokes, saying all kinds of rubbish – why are they doing this? What has she done to harm anyone? She worked hard in her profession and earned a name for herself. She didn't win a lottery or steal anything from your father's bank account – she's done you no harm but yet you want to bring her down by saying nasty things to her. People should just stop this nonsense!"
This is not the first time Preity has stood for her colleagues. Way back during the 'My Name Is Khan' days, Preity had supported Shah Rukh Khan over a controversy. A tabloid had accused SRK of having no grief over the lives lost in the 26/11 blasts. This was in response to SRK's statement that Pakistani players should be included in IPL teams. Preity had then said, “Shahrukh is the most secular and fair guy I know. I think it’s unfair to judge his movie based on his opinions.”
However, as Preity begins to fight her own battle now, she finds herself quite alone. When Shah Rukh Khan commented that he would talk to Preity personally on the issue, Saif Ali Khan commented that the Ness he knew was a 'gentleman'. Aamir Khan, who has spoken a lot against injustice in his popular TV show 'Satyamev Jayate', has been mum on this issue. Salman Khan, with who Preity is perhaps the closest, jokingly broke into a dance when asked about Preity, at a press conference for Kick.
Mahesh Bhatt was one of the few celebs who tweeted about the issue, "A Fairy tale love story turns into A HATE STORY! What an unfortunate end to the Priety Zinta Ness Wadia romance."
Aamir's wife Kiran Rao though did speak up for Preity."It's unfortunate to hear that, it is always awful to hear someone from the film fraternity feel they are alone. So I hope she doesn't feel alone. This is a very personal issue though. I mean I can't comment on the issue because I don't know the details of it but I do hope she manages to resolve the issue first, " she said.
Shobha De though came out with a detailed analysis of the issue. Though she did sympathize with Preity, she felt that this incident will be the end of her. Here is an excerpt of Ms De published by NDTV:
"Let's be honest : It takes guts to file an FIR against a powerful person who has allegedly been abusive in public. Abuse is abuse - verbal, physical, sexual. But the debacle that took place at the stadium on May 30, and which is dominating media space right now, will only erode whatever is left of the PZ brand."
Bollywood's most popular and social filmmaker Karan Johar said, "Of course, needless to say that my friendship with her is not only professional, but also deeply personal and she will always have my love and unconditional support."