The Bollywood superstar and winner of Celebrity Big Brother 2007 tells Katie McKenna about her love affair with Great Britain and how she found it in her heart to forgive Jade Goody.

To millions of people around the world, Shilpa Shetty is a household name; one that instantly brings to mind the beautiful young Indian actress and all the glamour that a successful career in Bollywood brings with it. However in 2007, a career that was already stellar went stratospheric and thanks to Celebrity Big Brother, Shilpa Shetty managed to reach a far wider British audience.

As always with the reality TV show, controversy and conflict was the name of the game and in 2007, Shilpa Shetty, Jade Goody, ex–S Club 7 singer Jo O’Meara and glamour model Danielle Lloyd were at the epicenter of an explosive series of events. Shilpa remained dignified throughout the shouting matches and name–calling that reached new levels – even for Big Brother – and went on to win the show with a landslide victory of 67 per cent.

The three weeks in the BB house was not the only time controversy has been a part of Shilpa’s life. She gained further column inches in British newspapers when Richard Gere staged a dramatic Hollywood kiss during an AIDS fundraiser only three months after the BB race row.

While these two events made Shilpa even more well known in the UK, when talking to the 33–year–old actress it is her heightened sense of compassion and understanding that shines through coupled with just how normal she is, seemingly untouched by stardom. Like many of us, she too has a sports–mad boyfriend – businessman Raj Kundra – but unlike many of us, she was able to invest in his favourite cricket team, the Rajasthan Royals. And all this amid rumours that she could soon be joining the cast of EastEnders. Is there never a dull moment in the life of Shilpa Shetty?

You and your boyfriend Raj recently bought a 12 per cent stake in the Rajasthan Royals. Are you a fan of cricket?
Completely. I am stationed here in South Africa and have been traveling all over with the team for the last month and will be here for another month until it&rsquo:s over. The amount I have learnt about the game has taken me from just being a fan and added that extra responsibility of being a co–owner. I have never enjoyed cricket more, it’ just so thrilling when your team is on the pitch and you are cheering for them. It’s just been fantastic.

Was it something your boyfriend was keen to do?
Totally – it was his idea. Being a businessman he thought that it was great proposition. I completely understood the logic behind it because in India cricket is like a religion. We couldn’t have the IPL [Indian Premier League] in India this year because of the election. Security has become a huge concern and it would have been too much to handle in India. The last minute shift in plan – bringing the IPL to South Africa – has been amazing as has the warm welcome we have received.

Was it something your boyfriend was keen to do?
Totally – it was his idea. Being a businessman he thought that it was great proposition. I completely understood the logic behind it because in India cricket is like a religion. We couldn’t have the IPL [Indian Premier League] in India this year because of the election. Security has become a huge concern and it would have been too much to handle in India. The last minute shift in plan – bringing the IPL to South Africa – has been amazing as has the warm welcome we have received.

You have been in so many films. Does your passion still lie with acting?
Totally. I mean that’s my first love and cricket is something I have got into as a business. Being an actor is a hobby and I enjoy what I do. Cricket is something I do as a job behind the scenes. I don’t have to perform, the players do. With cricket I have just invested but with acting you have so much more responsibility – you have to do the job yourself. The transition has been amazing from being an actor to a co-owner of the Rajasthan Royals. It’s been crazy for me.

You are hugely popular in India and Britain. Was breaking Britain always something you wanted to do?
No not really; in hindsight it all just fell into place. Big Brother just fell into my lap but I was in two minds about doing it because no Indian had ever done it before and I was like, 'What the heck!’ I was being paid to just be myself – how bad could it be? I didn’t fear showing myself to the audience. Until then Asian audiences in Britain knew me because Asian audiences are very switched on to Bollywood films in Britain and Britain has a huge population of Asians. Up until that point my popularity was restricted to those people and after Big Brother it just became wider. Who would have ever thought that I could win a show abroad? It had never happened before and when I did, it opened a whole load of new avenues for me. Being a celebrity in the UK was something that I had never imagined: I thought I would be evicted in the first week but that didn’t happen. God has his own plans for you. I’ve never really planned anything in my whole life and it all fell into place and I went with the flow. Britain has been so kind to me and even today I feel like it’s my second home and now even more so that Raj hails from Britain.

Was there ever a time when you regretted doing Celebrity Big Brother?
Never, I have never regretted it one bit. You know I had the choice of getting out if I wanted to so it was always my choice to stay. There were a couple of moments when I thought, 'God, I don’t need this!’ Jermaine [Jackson] became a very dear friend in the house and he was truly the Rock of Gibraltar. If not for him and Ian ['H’ Watkins from Steps] then maybe I would have gotten out of the house.

Did the experience end up being very different from your expectations?
Do you know, I never ever thought of the whole difference in culture – I think that was the problem. I was the only Indian and I think that the other contestants found my accent different and I think half of them didn’t understand my vocabulary. I don’t think they really expected an Indian to speak English well but I never really put on a [British] accent and spoke – even though I could. As an Indian I am very proud of the accent I have and I didn’t want to come across as a wannabe, so I thought they should accept me the way I am.

I knew there was a big Asian audience who would like me but not for a single second did I think that I would be loved the way I was by British audiences. It wasn’t just the Indian audiences that voted for me – it was a whole lot of the British public and I couldn’t have won with 67 per cent votes otherwise. So there were moments when I did want to get out but I think the whole thing was me not wanting to give up – I can’t give up. I was so close to leaving the house and I sat on the bed and I looked at my parent’s photo and I thought that I couldn’t let them down. I would rather have gotten evicted than give up. I was really looking forward to getting evicted but that didn’t happen! I also must mention that the perspective of when you are a housemate and when you are the audience is totally different. In the house there is a lot of stuff that happens behind your back that the audience gets to see. The person involved doesn’t really know what’s happening and the enormity of the issues. That’s what happened with me: it struck me when I got out of the house. People saw a lot of stuff that I didn’t know about – I was unaware of a whole lot of things. Other than that whole chicken stock incident [when Jade Goody and Shilpa had a heated argument in the house after Shilpa asked Jade if she had used any of the chicken stock cubes] that happened in front of me, all the other conversations that happened were behind my back so I wasn’t even aware of what they were thinking of me. I was pretty happy in my own space to be completely honest with you.

You kept a very level head when the show was over.
People kept asking me how I could be so nice about it and how I could forgive them and I just said, "Listen, when you are a woman you understand that people can be insecure when you are intelligent." As a woman you have been through that at school: girls ganging up and bitching about you. That doesn’t come out of racism; it comes out of insecurity and jealousy. That is something I am able to forgive if people realise that, at the end of the day, what they did was wrong and I think that they did.

Jade, Jo and Danielle were really given a hard time by the press here and in India.
Yes and I think Jade got it the worst but I think that no person deserves to be treated like they were after the show – after all it was just a show. I felt really terrible for them, as a human being. I did my best to kind of make things easier for them by saying that it was just a show and people must forgive them and move on but I guess when people are hurt, you must understand that too. This discrimination that a lot of Asians faced years ago came back as bad memories for them. That was something I understood but I was very clear that it wasn’t racism because if it were racism then I wouldn’t have forgiven it.

Do you think, in the long-term, some good came out of the whole situation?
There were a lot of school children watching it – I don’t know why! – but I remember that one of my friend’s children came and told me that she was being harassed in school by a group of white children and after the show they came to her and gave her a hug and said sorry. It definitely was a huge catalyst in bringing about a certain respectability for the Asian people in Britain. In that same breath, I would really like to say that Britain has been a melting pot of multiculturalism and has given so many opportunities for a whole lot of different cultures to make themselves successful and that’s great.

Big Brother wasn’t the only time you have encountered controversy in your career, that Richard Gere kiss for example.
Yeah controversy and me go hand in hand! Richard and I were both there for an AIDS charity and it kind of backfired very badly on Richard. He is such a lovely man. Everyone knows he is a great actor but I think he is great human being. He has gone out of his way to do something for a country that is not even his and I am hugely appreciative of that fact. In India, and I guess any part of the world, celebrities are harassed more than usual but in a case like this the media should have paid more attention to the cause than to what Richard did. I felt it was my duty as an Indian to stand up for Richard, which is what I did.

Do you think that all this controversy has helped your career?
Yes there is no denying that a celebrity becomes more famous with the press that he or she receives but it is also down to the work that you do. I think at the end of it all the audiences respect you. I think that what I have done in my life and the position I have received has given me great respectability from audiences for which I am truely grateful for. I think that God has been really kind to me. It is really important for your audiences to respect you.

You have had such a prolific career. What is your next move?
I’ve not really thought about it: I want to do good work, I know that. I just dabble in so many different things; like cricket. I have started my production company – I am passionate about good films. Then of course I want to get married and have children.

Is marriage on the cards then?
Definitely but we haven’t really zeroed in on a date. Raj and I have decided to do it this year or the beginning of next. I just think that he is my soul mate and I am really happy. I don’t want to rush into anything – while the going is good we are just enjoying our lives. I do want to get married but we are so inundated with work just now it’s been crazy. We are just put off by the list of things we will have to do: he is from London and I am from Bombay and we will have to have two receptions! We always begin the conversation and then we end it!

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