Emraan Hashmi's 'serial kisser' image was deliberate PR plan, reveals former publicist
&imwidth=600&imheight=450&format=webp&quality=medium "Emraan Hashmi's 'serial kisser' image was deliberate PR plan, reveals former publicist")
Emraan Hashmi Photograph: (X)
Emraan Hashmi's serial kisser image in the 2000s was a part of a promotional campaign. A PR expert revealed how he was initially hesitant about it, but the plan later worked for him. Read on to know more.
It's not a secret that Emraan Hashmi had a "serial kisser" label during the 2000s, which often overshadowed conversations about his performance. But now, a former publicist has made shocking revelations that the image was intentionally developed for the actor.
Emraan Hashmi's serial kisser image
During a conversation with Soha Ali Khan on her podcast All About Her, PR expert Parul Gossain opened up about the tag and how the idea came up for building Hashmi's public profile.
"Emraan Hashmi is so fed up with that image. He has given me a go-ahead to say it," Gossain said, recalling those days. "There was Emraan Hashmi. He has no interest in PR. I remember Mahesh Bhatt saying that we have to do PR for him now. I told him that all his stories about kissing girls always get picked up. Why don't we create an image for him that he kisses everybody in every film, all the girls in every film? So Mahesh Bhatt said, 'Isme baat toh hai.'"
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Hashmi was initially hesitant
As per Gossain, the actor was hesitant at first about the concept as he thought it would affect his personal life. "So we told Emraan. He said, 'Yaar, Parveen, my wife, will kill me.' I said, 'You get her and I'll have a word with her.' He said, 'Acha theek hai,' because he can't go against Mahesh Bhatt basically. I told her that this is just a marketing campaign. This is not his thing. He is very against it. I told her that it works for us really well because we have so many films lined up with him. But if we don't have a story, how do we do it? And it worked for him, especially in B and C centres. It worked for him tremendously."
The plan eventually became successful, and it became one of the most recognizable celebrity images of that period.
When Emraan Hashmi addressed the serial kisser image
Earlier, during an interview with Hindustan Times, Hashmi had himself addressed the image. "They were commercial successes, and I was also raking in that image. We were playing up to it through the marketing. The press was in on it," he said. "After a decade of doing it, I realised that the audience changes. They say that every 10 to 14 years, it switches. The next generation comes to the theatres. It's very important to reinvent yourself for that fresh audience. And every character, every mould, reaches the saturation point. You can only juice it out as much. And I realised I juiced it to the hilt, yeah. So it was very important to me to switch."
In another interview, he also revealed, "There was a time when I used to get a little annoyed. I wanted people to take me slightly more seriously."
Despite taking on a variety of roles over the years, it was difficult to shake off the image. "What happens is that when you have such a strong image, especially in a very conservative society like India, they will still hold on to it. Like, if you see people from the press conference the other day, there was still a question about the kiss that pops up. But that's India. They are still obsessed with it," Hashmi said.
