It was after midnight and the body language was that of a broken man. Vinod Nayar sat dejectedly in his hotel room armchair and stared vacantly at a flickering television screen, his face crumpled with pain. Tears streamed from his red-rimmed eyes. Yet this was supposed to have been one of the happiest nights of his life. Just a few miles away, his son Arun and new daughter-in-law Elizabeth Hurley were enjoying the second leg of their lavish double nuptials. Surrounded by celebrity friends, they had gathered for a spectacular fireworks party in an ancient fort overlooking the desert city of Jodhpur. Vinod, the head of the family, should have been there with the champagne-drinking revellers and the fire-eaters and dancing horses brought in at vast expense to entertain them. But Joanne, his second wife and stepmother to Arun, had retired to bed and he was alone.
Before the feud: Liz and Arun at the wedding of his father Vinod (far right) and step-mother Joanna (far left) in 2004. Vinod claims Arun and Liz's lavish nuptials were a media event that ostracised his family Many acres of glossy, upbeat coverage have been devoted to last month's spectacle, an event that generated the sort of media frenzy usually reserved for Hollywood stars or royalty. Hello! magazine paid a bank-breaking £2 million to secure exclusive rights. Now The Mail on Sunday can reveal that the most talked-about wedding of the year was marred by unpleasant feuding from the outset and culminated in disgraceful scenes with ramifications that will last for years. The celebration had already been rocked by perceived snubs, claims, counterclaims and boycott threats. Now it has emerged that an unseemly wrestling match broke out at the height of the sacred Hindu ceremony before - to the astonishment of the 200 guests - Vinod Nayar was ejected from his own son's wedding.
Conflict: Liz with Vinod's mother Kailash, centre, who was not invited to the wedding, and his wife Joanne He has reacted with fury, disowning both his sons, saying they were complicit in his humiliation. But the real target of his anger, the person he blames for this shameful turn of events, is none other than Ms Hurley. And it is the result, he says, of her obsessive appetite for lucrative publicity. "I believe it was expressly done on Elizabeth's orders," he says, shattering the secrecy surrounding the debacle. "Maybe they didn't really want my side of the family there. They didn't even have the good manners to invite my 87-year-old mother. "I once thought Liz was a lovely, unspoiled woman, but now I see that she is a very hard person. It was important for her to get celebrity faces there. That's what the Hello! deal was about. She was fulfilling her contractual obligation. "I knew she was very ambitious, but I never realised just how desperate she is for fame and attention. "My wife and I were publicly humiliated and treated like social outcasts for the sake of a £2 million magazine deal. We were pushed into the background like poor relations." And he reveals: "I consider it an insult that she wasn't wearing the £35,000 diamond and ruby necklace I offered as a wedding gift. "But the most offensive and hurtful thing was to be denied, in the presence of all those people, the opportunity to accept her formally into the family, as is the Indian custom. This is not the behaviour of a woman with integrity and honour." The wedding was never going to be a family occasion. Spread over six days across two continents, from picturesque Sudeley Castle in Gloucestershire to the 548-year-old Meherangarh Fort, Rajasthan, it was packed with celebrities - even if some of them were C-list.
Trouble and strife: Arun and Liz were paid £2 million for their wedding pictures Elton John, Elle Macpherson and Prince Pavlos of Greece were among the more prominent. Others included designer Tom Ford, actress Patsy Kensit, fashion pundit Trinny Woodall and Janet Street-Porter, another member of the Liz 'n' Elton set. But the least that Vinod hoped for was respect. The retired businessman, who says his wealthy family was once among India's top industrial earners, embraces traditional values. In his world, a daughter-in-law, however rich or famous, does not enter a family and then start throwing her weight around. Sitting at a pale-green onyx desk in the study of his luxury penthouse in Bombay, surrounded by antiques, Indian art and other family heirlooms, it is clear that this quietly spoken 66-year-old man has been shaken to the core, to the point that he is now prepared to speak his mind in public. Wildly inaccurate gossip, he says, has made the past few weeks "the most painful and publicly humiliating episode" of his life. "I've decided to break my own personal code and talk to the Press for the first time, because there has been so much media speculation about what really happened behind the scenes," he explains. "Everyone seems to know that there was a huge bust-up. But certain people have maliciously decided to make my wife Joanne the scapegoat. They say that she had a fight with Liz because she was trying to hog the limelight. "Well, that is just rubbish. The fact is that Liz and Arun have treated us very shabbily. My wife and I were humiliated and still feel very angry about what happened. I'm in a lot of pain over this. "I once had a very good relationship with my sons. When Liz came along, I happily welcomed her into the fold. And this is the way she has repaid me. "My heart is heavy with pain. I don't know how she can blithely state in interviews that she gets on well with Arun's Indian family after what she did. They should both be ashamed of themselves. "My elderly mother cried because they did not tell her about the wedding, even though she lives here in the same building as me and my sons." It is a sorry end to what had initially seemed the perfect union of Eastern and Western cultures. Vinod recalls that when he first met Ms Hurley, he was in awe of the model and occasional actress's beauty and her superstar reputation. "She and Arun had been dating for more than a year when he brought her to our penthouse apartment," he says. "She came to meet the family - me, the grandmother and a couple of cousins. We shared a glass of champagne and then they left. I thought she was sweet and charming. Whenever they were in town they would come up for a drink on the terrace. "Once they even joined Joanne and me for a cocktail party with friends. I noticed that Liz never ate very much and I once made a light comment about it, but she just laughed and said her figure was her fortune and that she had to be very disciplined. "From the start she was chatty with me and confided that she loved my son very much. I felt proud that Arun had found such a beautiful and accomplished woman, even though his first marriage to Valentina had not officially ended at the time. "Liz visited our home perhaps a couple of dozen times and occasionally sunbathed on the terrace, which has a spectacular view of the bay. I thought we got on just fine. "We talked about how hard she had worked to get what she had. She's an Army officer's daughter and quite a tough cookie. "She complained about how difficult it was being in the public eye and said she hated the way the media kept prying into her private life. "Yet I got the feeling that she really enjoyed being in the limelight, especially the access it gave her to some of India's top people. She's treated like royalty over here." Vinod, a tall and distinguished-looking man, collects art and vintage cars. His relations with the young couple continued to be warm and friendly over the years. They were guests of honour when he married Joanne, now 55. He had been married to Arun's mother, German-born Gunhild Hapke (known as Gunna), for over 20 years but they divorced in 1996. Liz and Arun also visited him in January to show off her stunning 15-carat diamond engagement ring and spent more than a hour discussing their marriage plans. "Liz said she was very excited and promised that it would be a lot of fun. I offered to help, but they insisted everything had already been arranged. "That's when I came up with the idea of throwing a party for them. She was very pleased. She kept insisting that family was very important to her and how happy she was to be part of ours. I told her that, as head of the family, it was customary for me to welcome her with a gift and I offered to purchase a necklace, which would be presented at the Hindu blessing." But things turned sour two weeks before the Gloucestershire wedding. Vinod phoned Arun to discuss design changes that Liz had suggested for the necklace. "They were in the car and Liz was driving," he recalls. "Arun mumbled something about having sent me an email about the wedding via his office, which is on the ground floor of our building. He said the email was not very nice, but it had nothing to do with him - it was what Liz wanted. "He said she was angry because Joanne had talked to the Indian Press about the wedding. I was astounded. My wife had been doing promotion work for a jewellery company and a journalist had asked her if she was going to the wedding. "She said she was very excited, that Liz was a lovely woman and we were all looking forward to welcoming her into the family. It was not exactly revealing any big secret. I could hear Liz shouting in the background that she didn't want Joanne at the wedding. She was very angry. "I could not believe it. Arun's mother Gunna had talked to Indian newspapers at about the same time and revealed details about the wedding, but no one was threatening to ban her." Vinod phoned Joanne, who was in London. "He was furious," she recalls. "I said he could go without me, but he refused." "Absolutely not," snapped Vinod in response. "An insult to my wife is an insult to me - remember that Prince Charles didn't go to one wedding because the people wouldn't invite Camilla. "It's not the way we do things in India either. We have respect for the head of the family and I was not about to be dictated to like that." After a series of terse emails between Bombay and London, Liz backed down. She admitted she might have overreacted because of her fear of media intrusion. Vinod suspects she was just worried about losing the Hello! deal if information leaked out. While on the surface good relations had returned, it would appear that all was not quite forgiven. Vinod and Joanne found out that their hotel reservation in a village near Sudeley Castle, which Liz and Arun had promised to arrange, had either been cancelled or had not been made. They were fortunate to get a last-minute cancellation. "It really hurt that I was just forgotten," says Vinod. "I should have realised then that I was not important in their eyes." Indeed, to his consternation, he felt increasingly like an extra in a dramatic production. When Vinod complained that the few Indian relatives invited were all seated outside the chapel and had to watch on screens, Arun remarked that he was lucky to have been invited in the first place. Although Joanne was inside the chapel, she sat away from her husband with people she did not know. "Elizabeth and Arun totally ignored us," she says. "It's a shame because we had been looking forward to celebrating the occasion. When I tried to greet his mother Gunna, she shoved me away frostily. We were not introduced to anyone. It was absolute rudeness. Elizabeth was only interested in entertaining her society friends. "At the banquet, you couldn't see the bride and groom or the cake. I was sat with people I didn't know. Elizabeth couldn't move around freely because of her ridiculous meringue dress." The invitations for India included a list of do's and don'ts for guests, which some locals found insulting. Joanne says: "It included advice to bring bacterial wipes and not to talk to beggars. We found it quite offensive. We treated her more kindly when she attended our wedding three years ago." Despite the coolness of their reception, Vinod was moved when the couple exchanged vows. "Liz looked like a princess in her layered-chiffon Versace dress, and the castle was a glorious setting," he says. "Still, I couldn't quite shake the feeling that it was just an elaborate media event. "Liz told me that she was a down-to-earth, family person. But she let herself down by selling what should have been a wonderful, private affair to a magazine. It robbed the occasion of any intimacy." Vinod and Joanne flew back to Bombay, believing that things would be better on their home turf. But they were wrong. Vinod was told that Liz did not want his wedding gift for the Hindu blessing. "I was deeply upset. She opted to wear a necklace that Arun's mother had loaned to Valentina for her wedding to him. I thought this was in very poor taste, and that she should have something new." The situation continued to deteriorate when Vinod and Joanne joined some 250 guests for the four-day Jodhpur jamboree. They found that, instead of staying in the magnificent art-deco Umaid Bhawan Palace, the Nayar clan(with the exception of Arun's brother) had been booked into a cheaper hotel. "The Umaid Bhawan Palace was full of Europeans who were friends of Liz," complained Vinod. "Many were just minor celebrities. One English couple said that they had only known Liz and Arun for about six months and didn't know why they'd been invited. Yet my brother, nieces and nephews were put up in a hotel about six kilometres away." Again he complained to Arun about this perceived discrimination, but he merely snapped: "This is the way Liz wants it." Father and son had yet another clash when Vinod tried to take souvenir shots after an evening cricket match on the first day. Liz screamed at Arun to "take that camera from your dad for Christ's sake". And Arun snatched it from his father's hands. "I felt humiliated, like a naughty schoolboy," says Vinod. "I didn't want to make a scene, so I let it go. But they had spoiled the day for me. I was being put in my place, which was lower than Liz's European friends." Joanne, a businesswoman and former top model, was outraged at what she felt was a clear case of victimisation. "Other people were snapping away freely at both weddings, despite Liz's camera ban. Yet we felt there were eyes watching us the whole time to make sure we didn't do anything out of line. "At one point, when Vinod and another female relative tried to dance at the Mendi hand-painting ceremony, my husband was told to sit down. "They were embarrassed that we were acting too Indian in front of all the English. It was sad. As if we don't know how to behave. "I was brought up as the daughter of an Army officer who was awarded the Burma Star. And I have kept the principles I was brought up with. Liz and her kind are just upstarts." She recalls that Liz blanked her at one dinner. "I said 'Hi' and she looked away and started talking to her friend Tania Bryer. There was not even a smile." Tension continued to build up between the senior and junior Nayars throughout the extravaganza. Most seemed petty and could have been ignored by Vinod, but - as he sees it - the effrontery of finding that his name was not on the Hindu wedding invitations was the start of his undoing. "They put my ex-wife, my younger son and his wife's names. I was a non person," he says. "Even if a father is deceased in India, his name should appear as a sign of respect. I was afforded no such courtesy. It was like a slap in the face. "I can only imagine that my ex-wife, with whom I've had a difficult relationship, had managed to influence Liz in the same way she tried to turn our sons against me in the years since we parted in 1989." In particular, Vinod tried to take part in the sacred Hindu ritual, where the bride and groom are blessed by their parents. As the senior member of his family, Vinod naturally went to assume his rightful place on the platform alongside Liz's mother and Gunna. But he was quickly bundled away by his younger son Nikhil, who threatened to call security guards if he didn't leave. "I saw from a distance the argument taking place between Vinod and his boys," says Joanne. "There was some pushing and shoving, then I saw him collapse on a chair. I thought he might be having a heart attack and rushed over. I begged him not to make a scene and tried to calm him down. Then he was asked to leave by Arun's brother." Vinod says: "I think this elaborate Indian event was Elizabeth's theatrical dream. It was not a serious attempt to honour our customs. It was just nonsense." In retaliation for his ejection, he used his considerable connections to announce, in a Bombay daily newspaper, that he was cancelling the lavish £30,000 dinner for 250 people that he and Joanne had planned to host for his son and Ms Hurley the following day. "I took the decision to cancel the party that night," he says. "I figured that if they could treat us so shabbily, there was no guarantee they would actually come to the party I had organised in their honour. "I was devastated. I even tried to get a private plane back to Bombay that night, but had to wait until the morning for one of the two chartered planes filled with other guests. "Some were due to come to my party and they learned it was off only when they opened the newspaper, and the buzz vibrated through the aircraft." With a heavy heart, Vinod sent angry letters to both sons, criticising their behaviour and ordering them to vacate the two grace-and-favour apartments they use in his six-storey Bombay building. The letter said: "I am very upset with your rudeness and the terrible remarks you made in a very loud tone on the days I was in Jodhpur. You have shown disrespect to me and my family plus my dear friends who have been with me since your birth and have been your mentors. "You and Elizabeth gave priority to people who were not very important or who were not well known to you. I came every day to talk to you about the wedding but you disregarded me like one of your office boys. I hope you will learn what your priorities will be in life." Now Vinod insists: "I have totally disowned them. I want nothing more to do with them or their wives. All of this directly resulted from the wedding debacle and the fact that Liz clearly didn't want much emphasis placed on Arun's Indian relatives at either ceremony. "Out of the hundreds of photos taken at both events, I only feature in two. My dear wife was totally ostracised and is in none." Joanne, ever present by his side, felt that as a relatively new addition to the family, she could only watch helplessly as Liz and Vinod's two sons heaped insults upon her dignified husband. "I was disappointed to realise just how shallow and superficial Liz really is," she says. "That woman treated supposedly famous guests with more kindness than her husband's family. "As a result, what should have been an intimate, joyous occasion was nothing more than a commercial sideshow. Weddings are supposed to be enjoyed. "But we were told not to step out of line, don't get close to anyone, don't take any pictures. She was dictating everything behind the scenes. "When we went back to the hotel, Vinod made several calls to cancel the party. I have never seen him so distraught. He was crushed. His own sons had turned on him. "Yet the next day, when people heard the party had been called off, everybody blamed me and I was called the Monster-in-Law." Vinod is determined to quash his wife's detractors and protect her reputation. "This unpleasantness is not my doing," he says. "I am not doing this lightly. It's a big step, I know, but I have come to the end of the road. "This has nothing to do with Joanne. It's about the disrespect shown to me by my sons and daughter-in-law. "They let greed and a desire to show off to the world come before family. They have broken my heart and left me with no choice but to disown them."