Actress and talk show host Simi Garewal, who is also quite close to the Bachchan family, recently took to her social media handle to defend actor Abhishek Bachchan amid rumours of him having had an extra-marital affair. However, Simi deleted the video within a few hours after receiving severe backlash.

Simi shared an old video of Abhishek from the time he appeared on her talk show, Rendezvous With Simi Garewal. In the video, Abhishek was heard speaking about being loyal to one's partner and being committed in a relationship. "I personally feel that as a man, if you commit to a woman, even if you are her boyfriend, you should be loyal to her. Because you won’t like it if she wasn’t loyal to you. Men are usually accused of being very disloyal; I have never been able to understand that, and I don’t agree with it. It disgusts me," he had said on the show.

Sharing the clip on Instagram, Simi wrote, "I think everyone who knows Abhishek personally will agree he is among the nicest men in Bollywood. Good values, innate decency."

Farah Khan, who happens to be Abhishek's best friend, also commented, "I fully agree! He's just the nicest guy..."

However, the video did not go down well with netizens, who felt it was a "controversial time" for her to share the clip. Aishwarya Rai Bachchan's fans too slammed Simi for sharing the video at a time when rumour mills are abuzz about Abhishek cheating on his wife.

Soon after the backlash, Simi deleted the video without an explanation.

For those unversed, reports have gone viral claiming that Abhishek had an extra-marital affair with his co-star Nimrat Kaur during the shoot of Dasvi, and that is the reason behind trouble in his marriage with Aishwarya.

Neither any member of the Bachchan family nor Nimrat has issued an official statement on the entire fiasco.