Elizabeth is extremely hurt, but angry too, say close friends

A day after reports surfaced of Vinod disowning his sons because they humiliated him during the Arun-Liz wedding celebrations and treated him like a “second-class citizen”, the Daily Mail has reported that Liz is outraged at the way he’s washing dirty linen in public - and the British actor is blaming mom-in-law Joanne for stoking the flames.

Sources told the tabloid that the rift developed after Vinod’s second wife tried to “upstage the bride” at the Indian ceremony in Jodhpur. A close friend is quoted as saying, “Elizabeth is extremely hurt, but angry too. She can’t believe he has gone public like this. Some of us think Joanne is to blame for this and encouraged Arun’s father to speak out.”

Interestingly, in an earlier interview to After Hours, Joanne had said that she had no problems with her new daughter-in-law. She had claimed the post wedding party, they were to host a party that was later cancelled because Liz and Arun were tired after the 10-day long wedding celebrations in the UK and Mumbai.

But now Vinod has revealed the real reason was something else. “I figured if they could treat us so shabbily, there was no guarantee they would actually come.”

The unpleasantness has even left Mumbai circles with a bitter after taste. Arti Surendranath, who was part of the celebrations, is appalled by the turn of events. “I genuinely don’t want to be involved. Vinod is my friends’ father and I don’t believe he could have said all those things. Poor Liz is unnecessarily being maligned. It is really unfortunate.”

So what’s the bottomline if Vinod actually disowns his sons? “There is a difference between disowning and disinheriting someone,” says Mahesh Jethmalani. “One may disown a son, but he can still stand to inherit through his father’s will. I don’t know what is meant by ‘disowning’ in this case. However, this is a private matter and best resolved within the family.”

However, a close friend of Niki who was at the wedding says, “I don’t think this is true at all! I saw the dynamics at the wedding and everything seemed okay. C’mon, Niki lives two floors below his father! In fact, just ten days ago someone warned me about this story - that I’d see it coming in the papers. It’s all just sensationalism. I don’t think they’d ever go on record to say something like this.”

The source adds that what should be looked into was why there were very few of Liz’s relatives at the wedding. “Isn’t that strange?”