Film stars, politicians, athletes, and industrialists from around the world descended on Mumbai last weekend to attend the wedding of Anant Ambani, the son of Asia’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani.
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PM Modi blessing the couple and then seeks blessings from Shankaracharya of Jyotir Math #AmbaniFamily pic.twitter.com/4J9OKy3eOC
— Sneha Mordani (@snehamordani) July 13, 2024
The guest list included Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, former US secretary of state John Kerry, and two former British prime ministers: Boris Johnson and Tony Blair.
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According to Indian media, Modi spent around two hours mingling with guests at the wedding. The Ambanis also hosted an exclusive dinner for 100 guests. Several chief ministers of Indian states such as Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, West Bengal, and Mizoram also attended.
US socialites Kim and Khloe Kardashian were among the celebrity guests, who were greeted with a traditional ceremony welcoming them to India. Both sisters, who each have over 300 million Instagram followers, shared several pictures of themselves from the event in traditional Indian attire.
Another high-profile celebrity, Justin Bieber, performed at the ‘sangeet’ pre-wedding ceremony and was reportedly paid $10 million, sparking controversy on social media.
The total cost of the Ambani wedding, which spanned several months, is estimated by various media outlets to have been between $150 million and $600 million.
Currently, Ambani is the 11th richest person in the world, with a personal fortune of $123 billion, according to Forbes. Some of the wedding events were attended by fellow billionaires like Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Microsoft’s Bill Gates, and Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg.
On Sunday, police in Mumbai said they had arrested two people for attending the high-profile event without an invite, India Today reported. The accused were identified as Venkatesh Narasaiya, 26, a YouTuber, and Lukam Mohammad Shafi Sheikh, 28.
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Meanwhile, Rahul Gandhi of India’s main opposition party, the Indian National Congress, did not attend the wedding, despite speculation that Gandhi family had been invited.
Prashant Bhushan, a prominent critic of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), claimed that Gandhi had shown his “class” by abstaining from the “obscenely vulgar wedding,” while virtually the entire political class attended. Bhushan shared a clip in which Gandhi criticized the festivities, noting that they were taking place while “people are dying of hunger.”