At a recent charity dinner in Paris, Bollywood star Aishwarya Rai Bchchan bonded with ex-tennis champions Steffi Graf and Mary Pierce, discussed tennis, Bollywood and world cinema and became close friends, says a media report.
Aishwarya was specially invited to France to dine with two of the most attractive women tennis players to have walked the sporting pitch — Steffi Graf and Mary Pierce.
Aishwarya bonded with both of them at the charity dinner and the trio spoke about tennis, Bollywood and even world movies.
After the event, Pierce was so overwhelmed to meet Aishwarya that she invited her to come to her Mauritius villa along with her family and friends for a vacation. Aishwarya accepted the request.
In this special event, Aishwarya was the guest of honour to felicitate Gustavo Kuerten, retired former World No. 1 tennis player from Brazil.
A source says, "Gustavo Kuerten received an honorary award for his ground-breaking work for the disadvantaged children at a charity dinner. Aishwarya Rai-Bachchan was specially invited by the authorities to join Stefanie Graf and Mary Pierce at the event. She also gave away the prize to Gustavo whose work for the needy has impressed her a lot."
Aishwarya wore an Elie Saab gown for the dinner. "Mary Pierce bonded with Ash a lot and invited her to visit Mauritius. She had seen and heard about Ash and her work and both gelled immediately. They had a superb time during the dinner and now they want to make their friendship stronger. We are sure that Ash will also extend an invite to Mary sometime soon."
During her Paris visit Aishwarya, besides watching the men's and women's singles at the Roland Garros, also did two magazine photo shoots in the French capital where she had to shoot on the streets of Paris and created quite a stir.
"Ash was shooting in Montmartre that had busy streets. She is very well known in France and her Cannes visits and work in international cinema has only added to her appeal. People were hovering all over the place to see her and within minutes the street was flooded with people. There was a security scare but everyone was well behaved and just wanted to watch Ash. She also interacted with them by waving towards them and the shoot thankfully got over without any disturbance," the source says.
