Shilpa Shetty back on Super Dancer 4 shoot: Absence from work to request for respect of privacy, a timeline of events from Raj Kundra’s arrest

After a break and much waiting, Shilpa Shetty has finally returned to work. The Bollywood actress, who refrained herself from any public appearances after her husband Raj Kundra's arrest in the alleged pornography case, got back to shoot today ( August 18). She is back after shunning all her inhibitions and as everybody welcomes her back on the sets, here’s looking at all that was in the buzz surrounding the actress and her life post her entrepreneur husband’s arrest. Take a look:

Shilpa Shetty’s husband Raj Kundra was arrested on July 19 for allegedly being involved in the production and streaming of pornographic content. While the case is still under proceedings, the actress has refused to comment on it for the past month.

Few hours after Raj Kundra’s arrest, videos from some old episodes of The Kapil Sharma Show went viral on social media. One of the videos one was from the episodes when Shilpa, Raj and Shamita Shetty appeared on the show and Kapil asked about his source of income. While this was the first one, another video from the show went viral. The second viral video had Kapil asking Shilpa about her reason to marry Raj.

Shilpa, who is a judge on the dance reality show Super Dancer Chapter 4, was found missing from the shoots soon after her husband’s arrest. Several rumours about her refusal to return to the show, her replacement and more did the rounds in the media until the makers revealed that she is still connected with the show.

Shilpa Shetty’s absence in the first episode after Raj Kundra’s arrest was filled in by Karisma Kapoor, who was invited as a guest judge. This sparked rumours about her being replaced in the show. However, Karisma clarified that she is not replacing Shilpa. Later a few other Bollywood celebrities including Genelia D’Souza- Riteish Deshmukh, Sonali Bendre, Malaika Arora were seen filling in for her absence in the latter episodes.

After going through a tough time dealing with various news headlines, Shilpa filed a defamation case against almost 29 media outlets for maligning her image. She cited that several false and defamatory reports have been rolled out by media houses that have reduced her reputation in the public eye. Reportedly, the actress demanded an unconditional apology, deletion of the defamatory reports and compensation worth Rs 25 crores.

It was abuzz that actress Raveena Tandon was offered to replace Shilpa Shetty in Super Dancer 4 after her continued absence from the show. A source had earlier told ETimes TV that the show's producers did approach Raveena, who said no to them. Reportedly she reasoned out saying that the show will always belong to Shilpa and she would like that to be that way.

After days of being tight-lipped about Raj Kundra’s arrest, Shilpa released an official statement on social media on August 2. She talked about the ongoing trolling, displayed her faith in the Mumbai Police and requested everyone to respect her family, kids and her privacy in the trying times. A part of her statement read, “ I humbly request you - especially as a MOTHER - to respect our privacy for my children’s sake and request you to refrain from commenting on half-baked information without verifying the veracity of the same.”

Amidst the ongoing pornography case against her brother-in-law, Shilpa’s sister and actress Shamita Shetty participated in the Karan Johar hosted Bigg Boss OTT. During her on-stage conversation with the host, Shamita revealed her reason to participate during such a time too. The actress stated that she had given her commitment to the show much before things went upside down in her personal life and she felt it would not be right to back out of the show at the last minute.

A month after Raj Kundra’s arrest, Shilpa finally got back to work and returned to the sets of Super Dancer Chapter 4. The actress was spotted getting out of her vanity van in a pretty blue sari as she walked towards the set. A video from the sets showed her waving at the camera and smiling as she walked in.