Читать книгу Shilpa Shetty - The Biography - Julie Aspinall - Страница 5

The world watched aghast. On the television screen, two young women were pitted against one another: one, a tall, slim Indian woman in her early thirties, her face a picture of disbelief; the other, shorter, dumpier and younger, had her face twisted into an animal-like snarl. ‘Your head’s so far up your arse you can smell your own shit!’ she hissed, utterly unaware of how she was coming across to her fellow housemates, the television audience and, most damagingly of all perhaps, the outside world.

For this was the culmination of days of bullying, aggressive behaviour from Jade Goody, Danielle Lloyd and Jo O’Meara, three housemates on Celebrity Big Brother, broadcast in January 2007, towards the beautiful Indian actress in their midst, Shilpa Shetty. The three of them sounded like fishwives – and that is the charitable view – shrieking out racist abuse, clearly beside themselves with jealousy directed at the woman who was everything they were not.

Concern – and fury – had been mounting for days now at what seemed like a display of racial hatred developing on their television screens. Not only did Jade seem to be about to destroy herself but it also looked as if the abuse was on the verge of causing a diplomatic incident. On a visit to India, Chancellor Gordon Brown was clearly livid. Commenting on the furore, he hoped the message that ‘we are a nation of fairness and tolerance’ came across and added for good measure that the bullying was ‘offensive’.

In fact, the timing of Mr Brown’s visit to the subcontinent couldn’t have been worse. While clearly wanting to pontificate on matters of international politics, he was not allowed to get away from the only subject everyone was interested in. ‘I understand that in the UK there have already been 10,000 complaints from viewers about these remarks which people see, rightly, as offensive,’ he said. (In fact, the complaints were ultimately to top 40,000.) ‘I want Britain to be seen as a country of fairness and tolerance. Anything detracting from this I condemn.’

It was quite incredible that matters had come to this. Politicians from both Britain and India had got involved: Treasury Minister Ed Balls said he was ‘ashamed’ of what had happened and that ‘the image it projects of Britain around the world is appalling’. It certainly was. Demonstrators had taken to the streets in India, burning an effigy of the makers of Big Brother and carrying banners that read: ‘Death to Big Brother’ and ‘Do not treat our Shilpa unfairly’. The Indian Junior Foreign Minister Anand Sharm announced there would be a formal complaint, adding, ‘Racism has no place in a civilised society.’

But it was only too evident in the Big Brother household. For several days now, the three women, with Jade’s boyfriend Jack, had been making Shilpa’s life a misery. She had been described as a dog and told to pick chicken bones out of the lavatory with her teeth. Jade’s mother asked her if she lived in a shack; she had been derisively referred to as the ‘Indian’; there was speculation as to whether she ate with her hands and, after preparing food, she had been insulted by Danielle commenting that you didn’t know ‘where those hands have been’. All this was directed at one of the most famous actresses in Bollywood – it was a stomach-turning spectacle and one which showed no signs of coming to a halt.

And it had all begun with a most unlikely cause – a chicken. Shilpa had been roasting a chicken, which turned out to be underdone, prompting a barrage of insults from her housemates, who had already shown signs of being extremely prickly towards her. Much has been made of their racist slurs, but it was clear that what really lay behind the problem was that old British chestnut: class. Shilpa was classy, well educated and, what seemed to be a particular bone of contention, had servants – quite a lot of them, in fact. None of the girls baiting her, along with Jack, seemed able to bear this. Jo remarked that people in India must be slim because their food made them ill, being always undercooked. ‘I don’t trust that chicken,’ she said. ‘I want to eat it but I’m scared.’ Danielle, who had previously distinguished herself by referring to Winston Churchill as the first black American president, commented, ‘I love Indian food, but I think it probably tastes better in the UK. Is that right?’ Other comments included, ‘They eat with their hands in India, don’t they – or is that China? You don’t know where those hands have been.’

What was probably the case – and the girls in their dim way sensed this – was that Shilpa was not used to cooking as she had always had servants to do it all for her and therefore was not sure about the way a chicken should be cooked. But such was the furore created by the episode that her mother felt compelled to defend her afterwards. ‘You know, I microwave a meal in 15 minutes and that includes the spicy masalas,’ she said. ‘Did they not have a microwave in that place? That is how we cook in our home and Shilpa is used to doing it that way. She should have left it to them to prepare their meals.’

Certainly, Jade’s venom seemed to be getting worse by the minute. ‘She’s apparently some Bollywood actress, but I’ve never heard of her,’ she snarled. ‘For all I know, she could be someone off the Old Kent Road. I’ve seen how she goes in and out of people’s arseholes; I’ve seen her whispering, laughing, behind each other’s backs! She is fucking sly. I wouldn’t trust her as far as I could throw her! She isn’t genuine.’

Not to be outdone, her boyfriend Jack added, ‘We should lock the door and put her out in the garden.’

It was unbelievable that matters had been allowed to get this far. When Shilpa had been bleaching her facial hair, Danielle asked, ‘Do you get stubble?’ She later added, ‘She wants to be white. She’s a dog.’

Of course, Shilpa, who easily outshone every other woman present, was anything but, as Danielle was well aware. But her vindictiveness and jealousy were driving her to further extremes, which got nastier as the show went on.

Jade, certainly, seemed to be quite obsessed with Shilpa’s background. During a row about an Oxo cube, which escalated totally out of proportion to the actual subject matter, she became hysterical. ‘You’re a fucking loser and a liar; you need a day in the slums!’ she screeched. ‘Shut the fuck up! Who the fuck are you? You aren’t some princess in Neverland, you’re a normal housemate like everyone else!’ She also referred to her as ‘Shilpa Fuckawallah’, ‘Shilpa Durupa’ and ‘Shilpa Poppadom’.

Indeed, at some points, matters almost became surreal. Jade said, ‘She makes me feel sick. She makes my skin crawl.’

Later, it was far worse when Jack said, ‘I don’t like her. In fact, I hate her. She came into this house … fucking ****!’ There was intense speculation he’d used the word ‘Paki’; Channel 4 insisted that it was all right really, as he’d actually used the word, c**t! That the situation should have descended to a level where this insult was actually revealed to reassure viewers about the level of abuse Shilpa was enduring was enough to show quite how far things had got out of hand.

Matters continued to worsen. Up until then, the bosses at the station had said nothing publicly, contenting themselves with putting out a statement which read, ‘Matters of bullying or racial abuse in any form are taken extremely seriously by Channel 4. The nature of the show often includes incidents where conflicts arise and housemates are encouraged to resolve issues among themselves. Shetty herself has not voiced any concerns of racial slurs or bullying. The social interactions of the group are part of the Big Brother story and viewers have a right to see these portrayed.’

It was not enough. They were ‘hiding behind a statement’, said the Asian Labour MP for Leicester East Keith Vaz, urging them to put a stop to it there and then.

Prime Minister Tony Blair was dragged into it, too. ‘I have not seen the programme in question, but I would agree entirely with the principle he [Vaz] has outlined, which is that we should oppose racism in all its forms.’

Not to be outdone, the Tories stepped in. ‘It is quite wrong that the programme should tolerate racist abuse and behaviour from participants and I believe it is an issue that should be addressed immediately,’ said Conservative spokesman Dominic Grieve.

Most damagingly still, from the point of view of the programme makers, Shilpa’s mother Sunanda spoke of her distress. Shilpa had been reduced to tears on screen, which had not mollified her tormentors one bit, and had deeply upset everyone close to her. ‘As a mother, I find it very painful and alarming to watch my daughter cry,’ she said. ‘To see her cry on TV while a bunch of people abuse her is very painful for a parent. I have never seen her cry, maybe when she’s been heartbroken, but she’s normally a very happy person.’

As if all this were not enough, the sponsor of the show, Carphone Warehouse, decided to withdraw its backing. Indeed, the company was at pains to emphasise its disgust at what had been going on and released a lengthy statement washing its hands of the whole proceedings.

‘Our concern has rapidly mounted about the broadcast behaviour of individuals within the Big Brother house,’ said the CEO of Carphone Warehouse, in a statement issued on 18 January 2007. ‘We are totally against all forms of racism and bullying, and indeed this behaviour is entirely at odds with the brand values of the Carphone Warehouse. As a result, we feel that as long as this continues we are unable to associate our brand with the programme. We had already made it clear to Channel 4 that were this to continue we would have to consider our position. Nothing we saw last night gave us any comfort. Accordingly we have instructed Channel 4 to remove our sponsorship name and branding with immediate effect.’

Some were keen to point out that it is almost inconceivable that this should have happened if the victim had been someone who was disabled. ‘They have made a rather bland statement about condemning racism of any kind,’ said comedian Meera Syal of Channel 4. ‘But I am just wondering if, on their last series, for example, the Tourette’s sufferer had been called a “spaz” on a regular basis, whether they would have let that continue.’

Another Asian person who had been in the Big Brother household (albeit the non-celebrity version) held similar views. ‘It’s gone beyond that very thin line of what is racism and what isn’t,’ said Narinder Kaur. ‘It is disgusting and I am quite flabbergasted that three grown women can sit there and be so ignorant.’

Finally, a decision was made to say something, but not only was it too little, too late, it was also a PR disaster for everyone concerned. To begin with, Channel 4 chairman Luke Johnson went on Radio 4’s Today programme ostensibly to talk about the BBC licence-fee decision which was due to be announced later in the day. Of course, inevitably, he was asked about the uproar surrounding Big Brother. Only a series of ‘no comments’ was forthcoming, along with a repeated reference to the statement already put out by Channel 4. It was toe curling to listen to and, as commentators were quick to point out, he only had Greg Wood, the programme’s business correspondent to deal with. Had the interrogator been John Humphrys, it was widely felt matters would have been made worse still.

Only a few hours later, Channel 4’s chief executive Andy Duncan appeared at a press conference and, even though he clearly knew what to expect in the line of questioning, he could not rein in the furore. By now, the row had reached global proportions and images of him were being beamed all over the world.

Unlike that morning, there was no line of gentle questioning for him to attempt to brush aside: rather, he came under savage attack from a reporter from Sky News. He pointed out that a culture clash had been almost inevitable and that Shilpa had not complained of racism. But it was no good; the damage had already been done. Even after a reconciliation was staged between Jade and Shilpa, and the former evicted, questions were still being asked. Indeed, the board of Channel 4 held a meeting at which executives discussed the whole situation. The very future of the show was in doubt.

Nor were others prepared to let the matter drop. Teenagers should be taught ‘British values’ to combat racist and ignorant attitudes, according to the Education Secretary Alan Johnson, who added, ‘The current debate has highlighted the need to make sure schools focus on the core British values of justice and tolerance. We want the world to be talking about the respect and understanding we give all cultures, not the ignorance and bigotry shown on our TV screens.’

Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Commission for Equality and Human Rights, said Luke Johnson should be censured, too. ‘There is no question that if the Channel 4 board does not say that Johnson was wrong not to talk about it last week, that his executives were wrong to say that there was no racism involved … if the board does not take that stand then I think Tessa Jowell has to step in and ask if this is a board that is capable of holding a public asset in trust for us,’ he commented. ‘I think it is that serious.’

When it finally came, the end was provided by the person who had started it all: Jade. Equally desperate not to break their own rules by intervening, yet watching in horror as their most famous housemate destroyed herself on live television, Channel 4 can only have been relieved when it finally emerged that the two people up for eviction were Shilpa and Jade. As the bosses knew it would be, this vote was immediately turned into a referendum on racism: would viewers support ‘racist’ Jade or her victim Shilpa? In the event, 82 per cent of the vote voted for Shilpa, with a very chastened Jade being booted out of the house. Belatedly, she began to take on the full implications of what she had done.

Indeed, after a Big Brother briefing, only a bit of which was televised, Jade’s attitude seemed to change dramatically. In a bid to make up, she hugged Shilpa and expressed regret if her actions and opinions had offended any Indians. Channel 4, meanwhile, was doing everything it could to defuse matters: there would be no baying crowd waiting for Jade’s release, just a quiet interview with Davina McCall. Jade herself pretty much gave the game away that she’d been warned what damage her actions had done when the result of the vote was announced. Unusually, there was no screaming from outside. ‘I know why there’s no noise,’ she said.

‘Why?’ asked Shilpa.

‘I know, but I can’t tell you,’ she replied.

Shilpa showed a great deal more forgiveness than she might have done, even expressing concern for Jade on the outside. ‘I didn’t want her to go with no one liking her,’ she said. ‘I hope she’s OK.’

It was evident on her exit that Jade was now horribly aware of what she’d done to herself. Davina showed clips of her ranting like a fishwife: ‘I’m disgusted with myself,’ she said, as well she might be. ‘I don’t judge people by the colour of their skin.’ Indeed, she looked pretty petrified. ‘I don’t want to be hated,’ she said. ‘Before, I didn’t have anything to lose, and now I have so much … I’ll be going because people will think I’m a racist bitch and I’m not. I’m so scared – I’ve never been so scared in my life. The whole feeling of being rejected absolutely kills me.’

This, then, is the conclusion to the great Big Brother experiment: take someone from nowhere, elevate her to the heights of fame and then see her self-destruct. Jade might have had a good deal to apologise for, but she was not alone. How had the situation got out of hand? It was not an edifying sight.

Inside the house, Shilpa said she thought the bullying was not racist; outside, meanwhile, Jade was dropped as the face of an anti-bullying campaign, while Debenhams and The Perfume Shop withdrew her scent from sale. Shortly afterwards, it was announced that the paperback edition of her autobiography was not going to be published on the expected date. Despite her quite despicable behaviour, Jade became a figure to be pitied. She was as manipulated as everyone else. The creation of reality television, she was now being savaged by the beast that made her famous.

Danielle’s career looked to be in equally dire straits, with urgent damage limitation going on outside. Angela de Fouw, her spokesperson, leaped to her client’s defence. ‘Danielle would be distraught to have been associated or linked with any form of alleged racism,’ she said. ‘Many of Danielle’s closest friends are from multi-cultural backgrounds and are of diverse races. Danielle is the last person who would condone any form of racism or bullying.’ But it was all too late.

Given the dignity and grace displayed by Shilpa within the house, it came as no surprise that her mother took an equally gracious view. ‘I actually fear for Jade’s safety,’ she said. ‘After the way she’s behaved, I know there are a lot of angry people out to get her – and not just Shilpa’s fans and fellow Indians. I’m getting calls from people all over the world, all colours and backgrounds who are disgusted by her comments. We are praying to God for Jade’s wellbeing, spiritually and physically. I have no rancour in my heart for Jade. She’s just an ignorant girl who knows very little about other people’s cultures. It’s sad, but I would not want to see anything bad happen.’

She was not, however, anything like as forgiving towards the programme makers, who she saw as putting Shilpa through an unforgivable ordeal. ‘It is an ugly and vulgar show which has run its course,’ she said. ‘It must end with this one. There is already enough conflict in the world. We don’t need to create it artificially and call it entertainment. This has been one of the most unpleasant events I have encountered on television. I don’t mind some friction – it is inevitable when you create this kind of environment. But the show is deeply flawed. They should have provided firm guidelines from the start to ensure a level of respect for other people’s culture. Instead, they turned it into a combat zone, which left my child exposed and vulnerable. Nobody warned us this could happen.’

No one had realised what could happen either and in time Sunanda was able to take reassurance from the fact that Shilpa was practically guaranteed a hero’s welcome on her return to her home country (to say nothing of the fact that she was now world famous). ‘It is already clear that she will be welcomed as a hero,’ she said. ‘Shilpa has always been adored here. She puts her fame in the country of her birth above everything. I want to march into the house and take her out. And if she leaves I will be there to hug her and tell her I love her.’

The message, as far as Jade was concerned, continued to be one of forgiveness. ‘Shilpa is such a positive human being she always bounces back and she cannot have anything to do with negativity,’ said her spokesman Dale Bhagwagar. ‘She believes in moving on and not having negative thoughts, and when she gets out of the Big Brother house she will want to meet up with Jade and her mother Jackiey, go to their houses and show she does not hold any grudges. She is just as likely to invite Jade to India to see the country for herself. Shilpa is a very warm and spiritual person. If someone really hurt her, all she would do is ignore them and treat them as if they never existed.’

Sunanda also, rather understandably, wanted to question her daughter’s tormentors. Whatever their motivation – racism, jealousy, class conflict – their behaviour reeked of the worst excesses of the school playground. Even allowing for the fact that Shilpa could come across as a mite high-handed, absolutely nothing could excuse their treatment of her, especially the way in which she, one person, was picked on by a gang that at times numbered five.

‘What I’d like to ask the members of the family who have been abusing Shilpa is why?’ she continued. ‘They have acted like school bullies. If I meet either when I come to London, I’d say the same thing but I am not going to hunt them down. I have always brought my daughters up to be respectful of others. That’s clearly not the case with Jade. The people who have racially abused Shilpa are jealous of her looks and are clearly ill educated. I don’t believe these opinions reflect that of the British public. We have been to London dozens of times and are always treated well.’

Shilpa’s father Surendra, 57, was also looking forward to seeing his daughter. ‘We are both looking to travel to London next week,’ he said.

Of course, the Shettys were not alone in their dismay at what had been done. Britain’s entire political establishment, never slow to leap on a bandwagon, had already had their say, with real concerns in many quarters about how Britain came across to the outside world. But many were upset on a personal level, too. Film director Ken Russell, initially himself a housemate, who had been driven out by the sheer vulgarity of the Goodys, was horrified at what had been going on. ‘Later, when her [Jade’s] mother was ignominiously sent off, I thought things might improve,’ he wrote. ‘Not a bit of it. I watched, appalled, as Jade vented her wrath at the most sanguine person in the house – the divine Shilpa. Not only that, but Jade also impressed two cohorts to join her in the persecution.’

Jade by now was well and truly aware of what she’d done. A mea culpa world tour ensued, as she desperately tried to backtrack – very ironically, she herself is of mixed race as her paternal grandfather was black – apologising for her behaviour and voicing utter regret. A visit to India to apologise to the entire nation was planned, as she went from one television studio to the next in an effort to exonerate herself.

‘No, I’m not a racist, but I accept I made racist comments,’ she said in one no-holds barred interview with a Sunday newspaper. ‘I don’t see people for the colour that they are, or where they come from. I’m mixed race myself and I speak to everyone of every colour, background and nationality. I don’t care about where people are from. I’m not going to justify my actions because they were wrong. I was shocked to see how I behaved. I was shocked and disgusted at myself.’

Indeed, she seemed absolutely determined to come up with every criticism of her own behaviour that she could think of before anyone else got the chance to say it for her. ‘I don’t know why I said those things to her or why those words came into my head,’ she said. ‘I wasn’t thinking in my head a nasty thought. I’m not making excuses because I know that it’s wrong. I now know that it’s offensive. Maybe I’m just really stupid and nasty at heart, but I really don’t think I am. My anger when I watched it on the screen shocked me. I didn’t like it; I didn’t know that my presence could be so intimidating or bullying.’

As a matter of fact, Jade did slightly understand the reason why she behaved in the way that she did, even though she had some difficulty enunciating it. Her background could not have been more different from Shilpa’s, and it was clearly that, combined with jealousy, that provoked her in the way that it did. One of the sad things about the whole affair is the way she demeaned herself so much. In some ways, she had been an admirable figure up until then – she used the only means available to her, reality television, to haul herself up out of poverty and resolutely failed to blame the system that had deprived her. But now, she clearly saw that her background had come back to haunt her, and she might as well confront that head on.

‘I’ve never blamed my past for anything I’ve done, but I don’t know any other way,’ she said (and what a condemnation of the way Britain has allowed an underclass to develop was there). ‘My only way to argue is to shout – to get louder and louder so that I can’t hear what they’re saying. It’s the way I am. I didn’t know it was a problem until I watched it. I don’t want people to be scared of me, or think that I’m intimidating. I hold my hand up to my comments and to people reading them or hearing them and thinking I’m a racist. I can understand why those words would look racist because I didn’t get on particularly well with Shilpa. It’s offensive to her and her culture. I didn’t think “poppadom” was a racist word. I now know that things that I may not think are racist can actually be racist. It’s my own fault for not knowing enough about other people’s cultures.’ Say what you like, Jade was certainly facing her own demons head on.

She realised 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?