When almost the entire Bollywood was present in the US for International Indian Film Academy (IIFA) Awards 2014, Shah Rukh Khan gave the starry function a miss.
Khan has been a regular at the extravagant IIFA Awards over the years and hence the superstar's absence from at Tampa Bay, Florida this year was starkly noticed.
The "Chennai Express" actor instead of making way to the US settled in Abu Dhabi on Sunday, where he dropped on time to watch his team Kolkata Knight Riders' (KKR) take on Kings XI Punjab (KXIP).
Prior to the match, Khan had tweeted, "Racing against the sands to reach Abu Dhabi for the game. It's good to see how even rocks move on..."
The actor was in his energetic best during the match as he was seen cheering out loud from the VIP section for his team in mauve. However, KKR struggled to hold against Preity Zinta's KXIP and eventually lost by 23 runs.
Post the match Khan took to his Twitter handle again to share his thoughts.
lost match not good. dinner...life discussion and then a scarlett johansson film with my lovely daughter....priceless.
— SHAH RUKH KHAN (@iamsrk) April 27, 2014
Meanwhile, the actor's film commitments is also understood to be another reason why he missed out the star studded IIFA Awards. Khan was continuously shooting on a night schedule for close to a month for his upcoming film "Happy New Year" ("HNY"). The night shooting got wrapped only on 25 April as both Khan and director Farah Khan shared the news on social networking sites.
Nearly 30 nites of relentless work. Was waiting for them to end & now that they have ended...don't know what to do with the day. Sleep maybe — SHAH RUKH KHAN (@iamsrk) April 25, 2014
And finally the nite shoots end after a month!! The most fun direction dept n also the most efficient!! Thank u! pic.twitter.com/gVnMLA0Jq1
— Farah Khan (@TheFarahKhan) April 25, 2014
The actor is also working with the team of his upcoming film, "Fan," for which he had recently undergone a look test under the guard of Hollywood makeup artist Greg Cannom. The actor is in talks with the film's team for zeroing on perfect international shooting locations. Reports had claimed Khan is expected to shoot action sequences for the film all over Europe.
There were also reports that the superstar gave the event a miss for casting his vote in Mumbai.
While it wasn't just SRK, the entire Bachchan family too skipped the event this time. Amitabh Bachchan's sore relation with IIFA is the probable reason for the family's absence from the event. The senior actor, who had once been the IIFA brand ambassador cut off ties with the team back in 2011 and ever since then, he hasn't graced the award functions.
(Ed:AJ)