The present investigation explored a detailed photophysics of an anticancer agent ellipticine, in AOT reverse micelle using steady state and time resolved spectroscopy. We observed that ellipticines are entrapped as a cationic species in AOT/hexane system. Increase in water content in reverse micelles, entraps more number of cationic species while increase in methanol content causes switch over of cationic ellipticine to a neutral species. Unlike in pure methanol, we did not observe any solvent assisted proton transfer in AOT/hexane/methanol system. This unique observation was explained by the inhomogeneity of methanol entrapped in AOT/hexane system. (C) 2013 Elsevier B. V. All rights reserved.