By Jackie Shannon

No, he hasn’t been bagging the national cricket team or publicly pashing any Bollywood starlets, but former James Bond, Pierce Brosnan, has been causing something of a ruckus in India lately. He first felt the heat when he lent his dashing visage to the product, Pan Bahar, a chewing tobacco promoted as a breath mint (huh?) that is widely used among Indian men. Known to produce psychotic effects (!!!), while also contributing to the development of mouth cancers and tumours, getting behind a product like Pan Bahar (also known by the more generic term, paan masala) is not exactly a safe bet for Hollywood’s shills, and Brosnan quickly found himself publicly slammed and trolled on social media in the international arena. Those in India, meanwhile, questioned both the actor’s participation in the advertising campaign, and whether he even knew what the product was.

“It is very difficult to believe that Pierce Brosnan has done this,” Pahlaj Nihalani, chief of The Central Board Of Film Certification, has officially stated on the matter. “Money can hardly be a criteria when you’re selling death to people. However, he has chosen to do what he has done. But there is no way that we can certify the ad. All paan masala, tobacco, and alcohol ads are automatically and unconditionally banned. Even the liquor ads showing big stars like Shah Rukh and Saif, which pretend to sell non-alcohol products while actually selling the alcohol brand, are illegal. You can’t use a name associated with an alcohol to sell any other product. I repeat, all paan masala ads are banned by the government on all public platforms.”

As per Nihalani’s harsh words, the campaign has been pulled, though Brosnan has refused to comment on the issue. Obviously hurting financially, we suggest that the actor stick with those daggy Kia commercials where he mugs shamelessly and plays on his super-smooth image as a one-time 007…

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