Emraan Hashmi's 'Serial Kisser' Image Was Part Of A Planned PR Campaign, Reveals Publicist

Emraan made his acting debut with Footpath in 2003, but rose to fame with Murder in 2004

01 Jun 2026, 08:50 · NDTV

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Emraan Hashmi's "serial kisser" image was a planned marketing strategy by his PR team
The idea was suggested by PR professional Parul Gossain and approved by Mahesh Bhatt
Emraan was initially reluctant due to concerns about his wife's reaction to the image

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Actor Emraan Hashmi has often spoken about the "serial kisser" tag that followed him through much of his career.

Now, a publicist has revealed that the image was, in fact, part of a carefully planned marketing strategy during the actor's early years in Bollywood.

What's Happening

Speaking on Soha Ali Khan's podcast All About Her, PR professional Parul Gossain shared how the idea came about and revealed that Emraan himself was never particularly fond of the image.
"Emraan Hashmi is so fed up with that image. He has given me a go-ahead to say it," Parul said.
Recalling the conversation, she added, "There was Emraan Hashmi. He has no interest in PR. I remember Mahesh Bhatt saying that we have to do PR for him now. I told him that all his stories about kissing girls always get picked up. Why don't we create an image for him that he kisses everybody in every film, all the girls in every film? So Mahesh Bhatt said, 'Isme baat toh hai.'"
Parul further revealed that Emraan was initially hesitant about the idea because of concerns about how his wife would react.
"So we told Emraan. He said, 'Yaar, Parveen, my wife, will kill me.' I said, 'You get her and I'll have a word with her.' He said, 'Acha theek hai,' because he can't go against Mahesh Bhatt basically. I told her that this is just a marketing campaign. This is not his thing. He is very against it. I told her that it works for us really well because we have so many films lined up with him. But if we don't have a story, how do we do it? And it worked for him, especially in B and C centres. It worked for him tremendously."

Background

Emraan made his acting debut with Footpath in 2003 but rose to fame with Murder in 2004. His on-screen kisses with co-star Mallika Sherawat became a major talking point, and a string of successful films soon earned him the nickname "serial kisser".

Interestingly, the actor himself once admitted that he and his team actively leaned into the image during those years.

In an interview with Hindustan Times, Emraan said, "They were commercial successes, and I was also raking in that image. We were playing up to it through the marketing. The press was in on it."

The actor added that while the image helped him early in his career, he eventually felt the need to reinvent himself.

He said, "After a decade of doing it, I realised that the audience changes. They say, every 10 to 14 years, it switches. The next generation comes to the theatres. It's very important to reinvent yourself for that fresh audience. And every character, every mould, reaches the saturation point. You can only juice it out as much. And I realised I juiced it to the hilt, yeah. So it was very important to me to switch."

Over the years, Emraan moved beyond the image with films such as Jannat, Awarapan and Shanghai. However, he recently admitted that questions about his kissing scenes still follow him.

"What happens is that when you have such a strong image, especially in a very conservative society like India, they will still hold on to it. Like, if you see people from the press conference the other day, there was still a question about the kiss that pops up. But that's India. They are still obsessed with it," he said with a smile.

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