Sushmita walks out after failed consesus over fee

Sushmita Sen.

Sushmita Sen, who is more often seen on the ramp than before the camera, turned her shapely back on the organisers of a fashion show after failing to arrive at a consensus over her appearance fee.

She had agreed to be the show stopper till last Monday, claim the organisers. But with just 48 hours to go for the show in support of women's empowerment and against child abuse, Sushmita refused to participate, forcing the organisers to look for a replacement in Yukta Mookheyinstead. 

The organiser, Sadiq Memorial Society, run by Rifat Sadiq, granddaughter of GM Sadiq, first CM of Jammu & Kashmir, had been coordinating with two of Sushmita's staff members Tusna and Meghna for quite some time. After a round of negotiations, it was agreed that Sushmita would do the show for Rs 11 lakh and Rs 43,000 payable to her staff. According to Rifat, who has a string of SMSes to prove her point, Tusna and Meghna suddenly went incommunicado.

An agitated Rifat said, "Initially, we were told we will have to shell out Rs 15 lakh to Sushmita and Rs 50,000 to her staff. After some discussion, we finally agreed upon Rs 11 lakh and Rs 43,000 to her staff. After Meghna and Tusna exchanged several messages and calls asking us when we would be ready with the money, they suddenly stopped attending to our calls Tuesday onwards."

The girls remained unresponsive even when the organisers offered to hand over the money to Sushmita in person. Saying she has never had such an unpleasant experience in her 25 years in office, Rifat added Arjun Rampal, Dino Morea, Aditi Govitrikar, Malaika Arora and Noyonika Chatterjee have attended their programmes without charging a single penny. "Thank God, Yuktaagreed to do our show at the last minute," said Rifat.

When contacted, Tusna said tersely, "Why don't you speak to Meghna?" Meghna in turn said, "Yes, Sushmita is not doing the show. Why she is not doing it is nobody's business."

While we could not get in touch with Sushmita, her spokesperson said, "There is no question of backing out if one hasn't confirmed an appearance to begin with! We find random people throwing random figures completely irresponsible and distasteful. Ms Sen has never interacted with the organisers before and has no intention of doing so in future."

EB