Lara Dutta

Would you go through life without passing something on to your children?" At the end of the event, she won the first place and the title of Femina Miss India Universe, earning the right to represent India at the 49th edition of Miss Universe.

Lara Dutta Bhupathi (Dutta; born 16 April 1978) is an Indian actress and winner of the Miss Universe 2000 pageant, who primarily works in Hindi language films.

Dutta was born 16 March 1978 to a Hindu Punjabi father and an Anglo-Indian mother in Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh.

Her father is Wing Commander L. K. Dutta (retired) and her mother is Jennifer Maureen Dutta (née Storey).

Nitin Sawhney, who is a music composer and DJ is Dutta's cousin.

The Dutta family moved to Bangalore in 1981 where she completed high school from St. Francis Xavier Girls' High School and the Frank Anthony Public School.

She graduated with a degree in economics and a minor in communications from the University of Mumbai.

She is fluent in English and Hindi and can also speak Punjabi and Kannada.

Dutta had a nine-year relationship with actor and model Kelly Dorji.

Dutta won the annual Gladrags Manhunt and Megamodel Contest in 1995, thus winning the right to enter the 1997 Miss Intercontinental Pageant.

She was later crowned Miss Intercontinental 1997.

She has received a Filmfare Award, and was a prominent leading lady in the 2000s.

In the year 2000, she took part in the Femina Miss India contest.

In the grand finale, all her fellow Top 5 delegates were asked the same question – "If you were a police officer in the Garden of Eden, who would you punish for the original sin: Adam, Eve, or the serpent?” Dutta replied by stating: "If I was a policeman in the garden of Eden, I would take all three of them to court.

Every person in life is faced with temptation, but you must be able to decide for yourself, make your own choices, and live by your own rules.

Above all, fear God, because he is everywhere."

After this round, it was revealed that the scores of some contestants in the Top 5 had tied.

All the delegates were subsequently asked a common question, so as to break the tie – "If ignorance is bliss, why do we seek knowledge?” to which Dutta expressed: "Knowledge is something every man is endowed with and it is up to him to make use of it.

Thirst for knowledge drives every man.

They say every man dies but very few men really lived.

And what is life without knowledge.

Dutta won Miss Universe 2000 in Cyprus.

She achieved the highest score in the swimsuit competition and her finalist interview score was the highest individual score in any category in the history of the Miss Universe contest, as her interview saw a majority of the judges giving her the maximum 9.99 marks.

During the final question and answer round, the top three contestants were each asked the same question by the host, Sinbad: "Right now, there is a protest that has been staged outside the stadium posing pageants as an affront to women. Convince them that they are wrong".

Dutta answered:

"Pageants like Miss Universe gives us young women a platform to foray into the fields that we want to and forge ahead, be it entrepreneurship, be it the armed forces, be it politics. It gives us a platform to voice our choices and opinions, and makes us strong and independent that we are today."

At the end of the event, Dutta was crowned as Miss Universe 2000, by the outgoing titleholder Mpule Kwelagobe of Botswana.

Dutta's win led to her appointment as a UNFPA Goodwill Ambassador in 2001.

In the same year, Priyanka Chopra and Dia Mirza won their respective Miss World and Miss Asia Pacific titles which gave India a rare triple victory in the world of beauty pageants.

Dutta made her acting debut with Andaaz (2003), which won her the Filmfare Award for Best Female Debut.

She went on to star in several commercially successful films, including the comedies Masti (2004), No Entry (2005), Bhagam Bhag (2006), Partner (2007), Housefull (2010), and Chalo Dilli (2011), and the action film Don 2 (2011).

In 2008, she briefly dated Dino Morea, but they broke up in 2009.

She then briefly dated American professional baseball player Derek Jeter.

In September 2010, became engaged to Indian tennis player, Mahesh Bhupathi.

They married on 16 February 2011 in a civil ceremony in Mumbai and followed it with a Christian ceremony on 20 February 2011 at Sunset Point in Goa.

On 1 August 2011, Dutta confirmed that she was pregnant with their first child.

Following a hiatus, Dutta appeared in the British drama miniseries Beecham House in 2019 and portrayed Indira Gandhi in the film Bell Bottom (2021).

She has since taken on roles in streaming series such as Hundred (2020), Kaun Banegi Shikharwati (2022) and Charlie Chopra & The Mystery Of Solang Valley (2023).

In addition to her acting career, Dutta has hosted several award shows and has her own line of beauty care products.

She is married to tennis player Mahesh Bhupathi, with whom she has one child.