Aishwarya Rai and her husband Abhishek Bachchan welcomed their daughter Aaradhya on November 16, 2011. And it was just six months after her delivery that the actor was turning heads on the Cannes red carpet.

In 2012, Aishwarya Rai was criticised for her weight gain post the birth of her daughter Aaradhya. (Photo: Reuters)

Aishwarya was criticised for not losing her baby weight. But the actor did not let cruel weight jibes spoil her baby bliss. “(Motherhood) is wonderful. You ask the question and I beam!,” she had said at an event.

“It’s splendid… It’s inexplicable. The joy, the bliss, is wonderful. A smile from my daughter and that’s it! She’s good. She’s great,” added the actor.

It was in June 2012 when Abhishek Bachchan broke his silence over people body shamming his wife Aishwarya Rai.

“I just think it’s extremely insensitive and no one has the liberty to speak about her like the way they sometimes do. Yes, she’s a public figure, but people forget she’s also a woman and now a mother and there’s a line that’s not to be crossed. I don’t talk that way about any woman ever and it’s obviously not graceful for anyone to talk about her like that either,” the actor told DNA in an interview.

Junior Bachchan added, “But may be that’s expecting too much, so to be honest, we kind of not let it affect us at all. Like Aishwarya always says, ‘negativity is like one drop in a huge ocean of positivity’ and we’d rather be happy about the love and blessings we get.”

See a few photos of Aishwarya, Abhishek and Aaradhya:

In 2018, in an interview with Rajeev Masand, Aishwarya Rai revealed how she dealt with the harsh comments. She said, “It’s not just been post motherhood. Contextually, post motherhood, you are referring to specifically body shaming. Because you are looking at it from that aspect of the body frame changing. I am talking about the reason I was able to handle it because I have faced judgement in my life for so long.”

Aishwarya also shared in an interview that the comments did not inspire self-doubt and said, “I’m so happy in my own life with Aaradhya around and the positivity as well as clarity that I have in my head about myself. At the end of the day, these are the choices I’m making. Nobody else is dictating or telling me how to be and what to do.”

Here are some more photos the Bachchans:

Aishwarya Rai Bachchan has been a true inspiration for all. We wish a happy birthday to the proud mom and actor!