The business tycoon said, “We chose the right girls, whether it was Deepika Padukone, Katrina Kaif. We had all the heroines and the stars on the calendar at a younger age. We picked the right talent.”
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On his latest podcast with Raj Shamani, Vijay Mallya talked about choosing Katrina Kaif and Deepika Padukone as Kingfisher models.
The business tycoon said, “We chose the right girls, whether it was Deepika Padukone, Katrina Kaif. We had all the heroines and the stars on the calendar at a younger age. We picked the right talent.”
Mallya added, “I did it because it was a fantastic marketing tool. Did not bring anything to me personally. But it did wonders to the brand,” he said. Addressing speculation about his personal ties to the actresses, Mallya clarified, “It was strictly to the calendar.”
Mallya, who is accused of defaulting loans worth over Rs 9,000 crore and is currently fighting New Delhi’s request for extradition in the United Kingdom, issued a rare apology for the failure of Kingfisher Airlines, denied accusations of theft and offered his take on why he left India nearly a decade back and has been on the run ever since during a four-hour conversation with popular YouTuber Raj Shamani.
“I was very impressed with the pitch that Lalit Modi made to the BCCI committee about this league. He called me one day and said ok, teams are going to be auctioned. Are you going to buy it? So, I bid from three franchises, and I lost Mumbai by a very small amount of money,” Mallya said on the latest episode of Figuring Out With Raj Shamani that was posted to the Google-owned video-sharing platform on Thursday.
Mallya, who was a regular at RCB’s matches along with his son Siddharth before leaving India, added that he wanted the franchise – which enjoys a huge fan following and a brand value that rivals that of five-time champions Chennai Super Kings and Mumbai Indians –to be “more than a cricket team”.
