Richard Gere - Personal Life and Activism

Personal Life and Activism

Gere was married to supermodel Cindy Crawford from 1991 to 1995. In 2002, he married model and actress Carey Lowell. They have a son, Homer James Jigme Gere, who was born in 2000 and is named after Gere's father, as well as the Tibetan name Jigme.

Gere was raised by Methodist parents; his interest in Buddhism began when in his twenties. Gere first studied Zen Buddhism under Kyozan Joshu Sasaki. After having studied Zen for five or six years, Gere traveled to Nepal in 1978 with the Brazilian painter, Sylvia Martins where he met many Tibetan monks and lamas. He then met the 14th Dalai Lama in India and became a practicing Buddhist of the Gelugpa school of Tibetan Buddhism and an active supporter of the Dalai Lama. Gere visits Dharamsala, the headquarters of the Tibetan government-in-exile, regularly.

Gere is also a persistent advocate for human rights in Tibet; he is a co-founder of the Tibet House, creator of The Gere Foundation, and he is Chairman of the Board of Directors for the International Campaign for Tibet. Because he strongly supports the Tibetan Independence Movement, he is permanently banned from entering the People's Republic of China. Gere was banned as an Academy Award presenter in 1993 after he denounced the Chinese government in his capacity as presenter. In September 2007, Gere called for the boycott of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games to put pressure on China to make Tibet independent. He starred in Free Tibet-themed Lancia commercial featuring the Lancia Delta. On June 27, 2011 Richard Gere meditated in Borobudur temple.

Richard Gere actively supports Survival International, an organization dedicated to protecting the rights and lands of tribal peoples throughout the world. He contributed some of his writing for the book, We Are One: A Celebration of Tribal Peoples, released in October 2009. Richard Gere discusses the persecution and loss of land of the Jummas, as an example of a tragic story that repeats itself in different continents of the world. He calls attention to the crime against their peaceful culture and how it reflects on our own relationship with nature and capacity to survive. The royalties from the sale of this book go to the indigenous rights organization, Survival International.

Gere campaigns for ecological causes and AIDS awareness. He currently serves on the Board of Directors for Healing the Divide, an organization that supports global initiatives to promote peace, justice and understanding. He helped to establish the AIDS Care Home, a residential facility in India for women and children with AIDS, and also supports campaigns for AIDS awareness and education that country. In 1999, he created the Gere Foundation India Trust to support a variety of humanitarian programs in India.

On April 15, 2007, Gere appeared at an AIDS awareness rally in Jaipur, India. During a live news conference to promote condom use among truck drivers, he embraced Bollywood superstar Shilpa Shetty, dipped her, and kissed her several times on the cheek. As a result of that gesture, a local court ordered the arrest of Gere and Shetty, finding them in violation "public obscenity" laws. Gere, who quickly fled the country, has said the controversy was "manufactured by a small hard-line political party." About a month later, a two-judge bench headed by the Chief Justice of India, KG Balakrishnan, described the case as "frivolous" and believed that such complaints (against celebrities) were filed for "cheap publicity" and have brought a bad name to the country. They ruled that "Richard Gere is free to enter the country. This is the end of the matter."

In June 2008, Gere appeared in a Fiat commercial for the European market, driving a new Lancia Delta from Hollywood to Tibet. The commercial concluded with a tagline of "New Lancia Delta: the power to be different". The commercial was reported in Chinese newspapers, and Fiat apologized to the PRC. Branding expert John Tantillo argued that Fiat had foreseen the controversy the ad would cause and hoped to benefit from press coverage it would receive, labeling it "adpublitizing".