Dimpled beauty Preity Zinta celebrates turns 47 today. Happy birthday to her!
Did you know the Veer-Zaara actress has a post-graduate degree in criminal psychology, which she gave up to join the glamorous world of acting?
Isn’t that interesting? Preity did have a small brush with the underworld when she joined the Tinsel Town. She had to testify in court against gangsters for their extortion!
While shooting Chori Chori Chupke Chupke, Preity had started receiving calls from the mafia, demanding Rs 50 LAKHS! The film’s producer Nazim Rizvi and financier Bharat Shah were said to have bankrolled the film through funding from famous gangster Chhota Shakeel.
Even Salman Khan, Shah Rukh Khan had allegedly been threatened but they’d retracted their statements. However, Preity had decided to hold her ground and testify in court about the extortion.
“For the record, if I knew that everyone was going to back out, I also would have. It was a scary time in my life. I should have been protected. Whatever I said in court was on TV ten minutes later,” she had commented.
She revealed how the gangsters had tormented and harassed her – “I was fine till they were scaring me, but once they started abusing, I lost it. I can take stress, but not people abusing me. I learnt that if you get a call from +92, don’t pick up! Luckily I was famous. Had I not been, it would’ve been tough.”
Now, when the other famous names had backed down, Preity still persisted in court. Why, you ask?
“They all said why did you have to be the one to do all this?’ But my way of thinking was different. I didn’t have a family, I didn’t have children,“ Preity had revealed to India Today.
Well, it’s all in the past now. The actress is currently enjoying parenthood with husband Gene Goodenough. The duo welcomed twins Jai Zinta Goodenough and Gia Zinta Goodenough via surrogacy in 2021.