Shilpa Shetty - The Biography. Julie Aspinall
something else, too – namely that she was a role model these days for some segments of the community and was expected to behave as such. Jade should probably never, ever have been put in a situation where she was allowed to become a role model, but that is what had happened and she was well aware of it herself. ‘I feel shit,’ she said. ‘I hate myself right now. The first time I was on Big Brother, it was like a holiday camp but I’ve now got people out there who look up to me. I didn’t want to get evicted for the wrong reasons. Evict me because I’m loud or annoying, but not because I’m a racist, because I’m not.’
Poor Jade – ultimately a woman to be pitied, as much as condemned. But she was, in many ways, yesterday’s news. While her own drive to rehabilitate herself continued, it was Shilpa who was now the focus of attention all over the world, just as she had been for years in her native India. It was Shilpa who, having endured a very unpleasant experience, was ultimately going to emerge from the ordeal with dignity, grace and any number of advantageous career options now available to her. So just who is Shilpa Shetty – and how did she end up in the Big Brother household?
Just a couple of weeks earlier, the world was intrigued when a slim and very striking Bollywood actress became the first-ever Indian star to enter the Big Brother house. A household name across Asia, Shilpa Shetty was almost entirely unknown in the West and initially, at least, not a great deal of information was forthcoming. Known to be 31, with a black belt in karate, and ‘the best body in Bollywood’, Shilpa came, quite literally, from a different world to that of everyone else present in the house. Above all, of course, was the contrast between Shilpa and the Goody clan that was not only going to electrify viewers, but also very nearly caused an international incident. Her beauty, intelligence, class and education highlighted only too well her new housemates’ lack of all those qualities with explosive results.
But, back at the beginning, Shilpa had no idea what she was going to find in the house. Clad in a glamorous green sari, with full Bollywood make-up and jewellery, she waved at viewers as she made her way into the house, exotic as a peacock among the homegrown sparrows already in situ. ‘I have zero expectations,’ she said. ‘The only thing I really hope is to keep my self-respect and my dignity.’ She could have had no idea quite how severely the two were to be tested before her time in the house was up.
Given that Shilpa was clearly no ordinary housemate, it was no surprise that her contract was not that ordinary either. Negotiated under the firm eye of her mother Sunanda, who’d apparently had doubts about letting her daughter go into the house, it ensured Shilpa was being paid an estimated £357,000 to take part. Given the fact that standards of behaviour in the house were frequently on the low side, there were other clauses written into her contract, too: she would not wear a bikini, have to join the others in the pool or eat meat on Thursdays (in accordance with Hindu religion). Nor would she have to drink an excessive amount of alcohol or kiss anyone, men and women alike, on the lips. ‘I had seen some extracts from a previous year and I knew it could get pretty raunchy,’ said Sunanda. ‘In one scene, I saw a young girl being egged on to drink alcohol until she was so drunk she fell out of the shower semi-naked in a very undignified way. I did not want Shilpa to be forced to do anything that would let her country down.’
Whatever Shilpa was bringing to the house, it was clearly going to be something pretty different from the exhibitionist drunken behaviour of past contestants. Ironically, her well-behaved and modest demeanour was to give rise to a good deal of soul searching on the outside about where British womanhood had gone wrong.
The world outside was certainly impressed. Shilpa was variously described as ‘beautiful’, ‘graceful’ and a ‘lovely Indian lady’. Everyone was intrigued, too. Although she was known to be an actress, that was practically all British viewers knew about her and stories began to circulate about the style in which she lived; the exact level of her fame and what really lay behind her desire to enter the house. Davina McCall, as usual, was instigating the proceedings; she asked Shilpa what she hoped to achieve. ‘I want to clear out the misconception of Indian people,’ Shilpa replied. ‘We are modern, intelligent and glamorous. I want all of India to be proud of me.’
She probably achieved that along with a great deal of Britain becoming rather ashamed of itself. At that stage, three of the housemates were missing – indeed, for several days no one would have a clue that they were going to turn up – but what Shilpa managed to do was present a face of India that was far more attractive than anything put forward by the West. Dignified, intelligent, sophisticated and, for want of a better word, classy, she soon proved herself to be everything the other housemates were not – with, as the world now knows, explosive results.
And, really, the biggest benefit to what was to turn into an ordeal was exposure to the West. Shilpa made no secret of her desire to act in Western films as well as Indian ones, and now was her chance to show herself off to both filmmakers and the audience who could take her career that one step ahead. The loud-mouthed comedian Russell Brand, who was hosting a spin-off show called Big Brother’s Big Mouth, said as much: ‘This is her chance to show herself to a Western audience,’ he commented.
Not everyone, however, was impressed. For a start, Shilpa’s own parents were said to be hardly delighted about her decision to join the house. ‘I did not want her to go,’ said her mother, Sunanda. ‘I have always travelled with her and this is the first time she has gone away to work without me there to protect her. She’s a very spiritual and gentle girl who, despite her age, has always been very sheltered from the harsh aspects of life.’
One person who felt the experience would do Shilpa good – and, rather ironically, put her finger on just what it was that was to lead to such a contretemps was her younger sister Shamita. ‘Shilpa is used to living like a princess,’ she later said. ‘This experience will prove to be just the strengthening tonic she needed to shake her out of her domestic cocoon.’
Others in the industry looked on in frank disbelief (initially, that is). ‘If I was Shilpa, I would shoot my agent for getting me into this without finding out enough about the programme,’ said one.
But clearly Shilpa felt she could do with the exposure. She was also getting well rewarded, but, given that she was paid more than her Big Brother fee for every film she made, and she’d made 51 before entering the house, she didn’t need the money, either. A whole new career in the West seemed to be what was at stake.
And it was a risk. It later emerged that Shilpa was not the first Bollywood star to be approached by Endemol: at least two other major names were said to have turned down an invitation to appear on the show because they were worried about the impact it would have on their careers. There was also a certain amount of debate about how famous Shilpa really was. Initially presented as being top of the A-list, that turned out to be a bit of an exaggeration: many Bollywood insiders believed that, although she was only 31, her career might have been past its best and this was a last-ditch attempt to get noticed in the West.
‘She is known for her body and her face, not her acting,’ said Rekha Ahuja, a film producer who worked in Bollywood for a decade and a half. ‘She is more of a Penelope Cruz than a Nicole Kidman, but she’s a sex symbol for young men, who plaster her posters all over their walls. There is no doubt that she still sells cinema tickets but at her age I imagine that’s why she wants to try to sell herself to the American or European film market. I don’t think she’s good enough, but I admire her for trying.’
Another person who felt that Shilpa was using the show to give her career a new lease of life was Anil Dharker, a socialite based in Bombay and someone with first-hand experience of show business – his daughter Ayesha played the lead role in the London musical Bombay Dreams. ‘She is not an A-plus star, she is more in the A-minus,’ he said. ‘But, in a country with several hundred movie stars, only a handful are considered to be true superstars. She is not among the elite.’