After days of speculation about whether she would attend the 79th Cannes Film Festival at all, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan was spotted at Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport on Thursday evening, twinning with daughter Aaradhya in black. She is heading to Cannes for the closing ceremony.
Aishwarya and Aaradhya stopped briefly for the photographers before heading to the departure gates, with airport staff and security in tow. Videos from the airport were circulated online, and the fans who had spent most of the past two weeks unsure whether she would show up at all had their answer.
The wait that got the internet talking
The uncertainty began on May 10, when L’Oreal Paris posted a promotional video ahead of Cannes 2026 showing giant campaign visuals being mounted across a hotel facade in Cannes. The clip featured Alia Bhatt, Viola Davis, Eva Longoria, and Helen Mirren. Aishwarya was nowhere in it, and the questions started almost immediately across Instagram and X.
L’Oreal’s own response only added to the noise. When a fan tagged the brand asking where Aishwarya was, pointing out that her presence at Cannes was the only time many people got to see her, the brand replied: “Year after year, Cannes after Cannes, she never misses.”
Indian celebs at Cannes
Aishwarya was not the only Indian name generating attention at the 79th edition, which opened on May 12. Several others had already been on the ground, and their appearances made clear that India’s footprint at the festival continues to grow year on year.
Alia Bhatt was among the busiest Indian faces on the circuit. She touched down in an all-black airport look before cycling through a series of red carpet appearances over the course of the festival. Aditi Rao Hydari delivered multiple looks across the festival’s duration.
Huma Qureshi made her first appearance of the festival at the Red Sea Film Foundation’s Women in Cinema Gala in a structured black suit by Gabriela Hearst. Tara Sutaria attended the Women in Cinema Gala dinner in an ivory Vivienne Westwood gown. Jacqueline Fernandez, Mouni Roy, and Punjabi actress Roopi Gill also attended. The Marathi contingent included actors Ashok Saraf and Nivedita Saraf, actress Prajakta Mali, and producer Kedar Joshi. Actor-producer Mansi Parekh and singer-producer Parthiv Gohil were present at the Indian pavilion. Actor-singer Ammy Virk made his Cannes debut with the Punjabi film Chardikala alongside co-star Roopi Gill, which marked a significant international moment for the Punjabi film industry.
Story continues below this ad
Over two decades on the Croisette
Aishwarya’s connection to Cannes goes back to May 2002, when Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Devdas had its world premiere at the festival. She arrived that evening alongside Shah Rukh Khan and Bhansali in a blue-and-gold horse-drawn carriage. She wore a mustard-yellow Kanjeevaram saree designed by Neeta Lulla, with gold zari borders, layered necklaces, jhumkas, and a forearm full of bangles.
The following year she returned not as a representative of a film but as a member of the jury, becoming the first Indian actress to serve in that role at Cannes. It remains one of the more significant individual milestones in Indian cinema’s long relationship with the festival.
The looks that followed over two decades have covered a considerable amount of ground. In 2007, she was joined on the red carpet by husband Abhishek Bachchan, who made his Cannes debut that year when Mani Ratnam’s Guru, featuring both of them, was screened at the festival. She wore a white Giorgio Armani strapless gown with a fishtail silhouette and a diamond neckpiece. In 2008, the wider Bachchan family attended, with Amitabh and Jaya Bachchan accompanying the couple as Aishwarya walked the red carpet for the screening of Vicky Cristina Barcelona in a fuchsia Roberto Cavalli gown.
In 2016, the fashion conversation had little to do with her gown. The embroidered Rami Kadi creation she wore was secondary to her choice of a bold lavender lip colour, which dominated coverage of her appearance for days afterward. In 2017, she wore a powder blue off-shoulder ball gown in layered tulle by Dubai-based Filipino designer Michael Cinco, widely regarded as one of her most striking red carpet appearances.
Story continues below this ad
In 2024, she boarded her flight to Cannes with her right arm in a sling. She posed for photographers at the airport but said nothing about the injury, and attended the festival regardless.
Through nearly all of it, Aaradhya has been alongside her. The two were first photographed together on the way back from Cannes in May 2012, when Aaradhya was just six months old. That was Aishwarya’s 11th appearance at the festival. In the years since, the mother-daughter airport moment has become one of the more consistent images associated with India’s annual presence at Cannes.
This year, Aishwarya attends as part of a L’Oreal Paris delegation that also includes Alia Bhatt and Aditi Rao Hydari, alongside one of the largest and most regionally diverse groups of Indian attendees the festival has seen. Her look, as always, is awaited.
