Why did Akshay Kumar skip IIFA awards in Canada?

Actor Akshay Kumar has apparently been busy shooting for Housefull 2 in London, even as several of his B-Town peers were reportedly partying away in Toronto at a filmi awards event. Having been declared as the ambassador for India by the Canadian Tourism Commission, one naturally expected the action star to be present at the event, but his fans were rather disappointed when he did not turn up.

The official reason was that the actor was busy with the film’s shoot. But strangely enough though the actor could not squeeze off even a day for the event, a source revealed that he did however manage to take two days off to whisk wife Twinkle away on a romantic getaway to Rome.

What was even more surprising was the fact that Kumar’s Housefull 2 co-star, Riteish Deshmukh attended the event. This obviously led to a lot of tongues wagging about the actor not wanting to attend the show, as he felt that it was actor Shah Rukh Khan who was hogging all the limelight there.

Though the two are not on the best of terms, industry insiders know that they aren’t enemies either, even though they are definitely arch rivals when it comes to BO star power. But those close to the star brush off these talks as rubbish.

“Akshay really has been neck-deep in work, that’s why he couldn’t attend the event this time around in Toronto. As for his Rome trip with Tina (wife Twinkle), well it was done much before the awards event,” clarified a friend close to the star.

“These past few months, he’s been busy with back-to-back shoot schedules. After his Joker shoot in Chandigarh, he went off to London for Desi Boyz and then from there he went straight to South Africa to shoot for his TV show. On his return back home, he again got busy with Joker and the TV show and then flew off to London for Housefull 2. In between he’s also been shooting for his brand endorsements. So, whatever time he gets he’s trying to spend it with his family,” the source added.

Explaining that the London shoot could not have been cancelled as there’s a lot of date co-ordination to be done between the rest of the stars, a unit member too revealed, “Riteish was not required for the scenes for these few days so he could attend the film event, but not Akshay!”