Читать книгу Shilpa Shetty - The Biography - Julie Aspinall - Страница 9

Jackiey, initially, was the worst offender. Despite the fact that it was hardly a difficult one to master, she refused point blank to pronounce Shilpa’s name properly, referring to her as ‘the Indian’. She continuously made barbed remarks to Shilpa, which may or may not have been the reason why she was the first housemate to be evicted. Shilpa was ‘jarring me big time’, she informed the world when she did her exit interview, but she was not, unfortunately, alone in her feelings. The bullying – for that is what it had become – only intensified with her absence. Stuck in the Big Brother household, Shilpa may have been having an increasingly unpleasant time of it, but her plight was (shamefully) making for gripping TV.

It wasn’t all bad. Speculation about Dirk’s feelings for Shilpa continued, with Shilpa confessing to Cleo that she found Dirk sexy – but too old. She and Jo also chatted about affairs of the heart, agreeing it is impossible to help who you fall in love with. She also admitted to being interested in the idea of working abroad (almost certainly the reason why she went on Big Brother in the first place) before, again, hints of quite unpleasant tensions lurking in the background reappeared. Jade had been making a series of catty remarks about how many servants Shilpa had when she was at home and, clearly increasingly irritated by her attitude, Shilpa asked Dirk if he had ever seen her actually helping to clean up.

The next sign of the rows to come came with the eviction of Carole Malone, possibly Shilpa’s biggest remaining ally in the house. Shilpa actually attempted to console Danielle, who responded badly, much to the chagrin of her supporters outside.

‘I think things escalated when Carole was evicted. Danielle was so upset because she felt that Shilpa was responsible for Carole leaving the house and that night Danielle had a bit too much to drink and exchanged a few cross words with Shilpa – which she later apologised for,’ said Leeandra Anderson, a great friend of Danielle’s. ‘Danielle will be deeply disheartened when she leaves the house to find out what has gone on in the outside world. I’m sure she will be hurt, but she has the support of her family and friends. We know she’s certainly not racist.’

What actually happened was this: Carole, Cleo and Shilpa had been caught discussing nominations, something in direct contravention to the show’s rules. However, of the three, only Carole was up for eviction, against Leo and Dirk. In the event, of course, it was Carole who left. She herself, however, was miffed that of the three offenders only she was on the nominations list, and made her feelings very clear to poor Shilpa, and to the others, as well. Indeed, Carole and Danielle teamed up for a little bitch fest of their own, with Danielle moaning, ‘Why do you have to go? She’s vile!’

‘Someone they want to keep in, they don’t even involve them,’ sniffed Carole.

Unbeknownst to the housemates, of course, concern was rapidly growing on the outside with complaints beginning to flood in, while high-profile Asians living in Britain were appalled at what was going on. ‘I think it’s disgusting, and I do think that the behaviour shown towards Shilpa is racist,’ said the British-based writer, director and actor Manish Patel. ‘However, the people involved don’t actually realise what they’re doing. I think that the reason why Asians in Britain have taken this matter to task is because we actually thought that this problem had disappeared and didn’t exist any more. But it’s become quite clear that some people do have strong viewpoints about Asians and it is often something that they keep hidden inside. They may say one thing to your face, but behind your back they’ll be saying something completely different.’

Indeed, it was not just British Asians but people across the world who were beginning to wonder what modern-day Britain was really like. ‘Asian people may well now be wondering just what their white counterparts are really thinking about them,’ Manish Patel went on. ‘Do people really believe that someone from India eats with their hands? It’s quite ridiculous! Shilpa is a guest in our country. The housemates knew that she was different, they were aware that she knew very little about Great Britain and Big Brother and, instead of welcoming her, taking the time to find out about her, they have treated her abysmally.’

Back in the house, the men at least remained ardent fans. Dirk overcame his discomfiture at being nominated to leave by flirting even more heavily with Shilpa, while the lady herself continued to confide in Jermaine. Indeed, her sister was right: the experience did seem to be doing her some good in that she herself said that this was the first time in her life she had ever done anything, including going out on a date, without asking her parents first. (When she went out at night, she always had to be back by 2am.) She seemed to enjoy confiding in Jermaine: ‘I’m more chilled out when I’m off camera,’ she said. ‘I can’t do that now because I’ll let down all the Indian people who want me to project my culture … Krishna says you do your karma, do what you have to do, don’t wait for the fruits it will bear. People here don’t belong to my culture. They don’t understand my culture. I don’t expect anything but politeness and love.’

Some hope! But she was to get a good deal else out of it instead.

Day 10 in the Big Brother house and, although the full extent of what was to come was still not apparent, matters were hotting up. Two contestants had already walked out and now a third joined their ranks: Leo Sayer left after a hissy fit when Big Brother refused to send him more underpants. His abrupt departure might also have had something to do with the fact that he was the favourite to be evicted, but tensions had been building for days now, with the diminutive singer apparently unhappy about being forced to play the role of a servant. At any rate, he was gone now, having made a dramatic escape by bashing down a door with a shovel!

He did, however, have a chat with Davina about why he left. ‘It was the underpants … I’d run out and didn’t want to wash my smalls in front of everybody else,’ he explained. ‘When I got out of the house and looked properly, there was one more [clean] pair! I could have stayed another day. It’s a little bit disappointing,’ he continued. ‘I was tired, my energy went, I wasn’t feeling very good. I did lose it a few times … when you get tired, you get ratty and do silly things.’ He hadn’t been thrilled about the conditions in which he lived either. ‘Sharing the shower and [the house] being really messy,’ he said, of the factors that had irritated him. ‘I haven’t shared a house with people for a long time … I was ill-prepared mentally.’

Indeed, it was a welcome comic relief from the increasingly nasty atmosphere in the house. The first row about food blew up on the day Leo left, and so to have a distraction was a good morale boost all round. Leo himself was philosophical: asked what he felt about his escape becoming a moment of high comedy, he replied, ‘It kind of wasn’t very funny for me, but the amazing thing is that it has actually spread all over the globe. I’ve had people from Australia, San Francisco, people from Los Angeles, friends from New York, friends from Canada, friends from Italy, saying, “Oh my God, we have just downloaded you!” So I am everywhere – if only my records could make such an international impact.’

Like Ken before him, he felt the atmosphere in the house changed the moment the three new arrivals appeared. ‘I was trying to be a peacemaker and say we are all going to have to pull together, if you all show each other a bit of love then we can forgive each other afterwards for whatever,’ he said. ‘But that actually stopped the moment the Goodys came in.’

Funnily enough, he took a considerably more benign view towards them than some of the others did. Asked his opinion of Jackiey, he replied, ‘I loved her. She was the saddest exit from the house for me. I think she’s great because she’s like a child, she’s innocent, and if you don’t like it you tell her to shut up and she shuts up.’

He was of the opinion that no one else would head for the hills, which was good news for Shilpa, who had been worrying that her friend Jermaine might also want to get out. Instead, she applied cream to her face and began to prepare some food. Not that it was obvious that anything was amiss at the start: all she had to contend with initially was a lovestruck Dirk hanging around her; ‘I like your eyes, your laughter – everything,’ he said.

‘I need help here,’ Shilpa called to Jermaine, laughing.

‘Jermaine, stay away,’ commanded Dirk.

In the background the girls seethed.

As has already been chronicled here, matters then turned extremely nasty, with the row leading Jade declare, ‘She makes me feel sick. She makes my skin crawl.’

‘She’s a dog!’ responded Danielle.

Danielle was clearly the worse for wear, but Jermaine felt some responsibility for the unpleasantness, confiding to Big Brother that he shouldn’t have got Shilpa to talk to Danielle when the latter was drunk. ‘Shilpa is too wise to come between a friendship,’ he said. ‘I think Danielle’s youthfulness provoked all this unintentionally. Shilpa is balanced. She knows how to handle ups and downs. I’m not here to change anyone’s life. I’m not going out of my way. That’s what Shilpa did, and it got her into trouble.’

Shilpa and Jermaine continued to bond, the latter saying he thought he’d be leaving soon, while the former attempted to console him and told him there are lessons to be learned from every experience – and, goodness knows, she herself could have testified to that. Jade and Jack had both voted her the person they wanted to be evicted; Shilpa, meanwhile, nominated Jack for doing no work in the house, and Leo, who later left anyway, for verbal diarrhoea. Dirk contented himself with telling Shilpa he needed an Indian woman in his life.

Come the next morning, as complaints continued to flood into Channel 4, the housemates, totally unaware of the growing controversy outside, were given their next task. They were to divide into two groups, who would be called ‘Steps’ and ‘The Jackson Five’, in homage, of course, to Ian and Jermaine. Fittingly, Jermaine was the leader of the Jackson Five, with Shilpa, Dirk, Cleo and Danielle also joining the group to sing ‘I Want You Back’. The others, as Steps, were to sing ‘Deeper Shade of Blue’. Although Shilpa had never heard of the songs involved, this gave her the opportunity to do what she did best: dance. She was also highly complimentary of Jermaine as an instructor, saying that in his place she would have killed everyone, and she told Jermaine and Dirk that Danielle’s diatribe the previous evening was down to alcohol and she wasn’t taking it personally. This sweetness and forgiveness did nothing to endear her to the other women on the show.

Nor did the fact that, although she didn’t exactly distinguish herself in the singing stakes, she made a pretty good fist of dancing in The Jackson Five. The group was dressed up in giant Afro wigs and outfits from the 1970s and pulled it off pretty well, despite Shilpa gasping teasingly, ‘We sucked! That was terrible. That’s the end of my career.’

Far from it: The Jackson Five won over Steps with 75 per cent of the viewers’ vote, while Shilpa, who had clearly enjoyed herself, remarked that this was the best task so far. The winners were awarded a gold disc, along with champagne and chocolate, although Shilpa’s confession that she had never heard the song she sang before was utterly mystifying to the rest of the housemates. But then again, why should she have? The fact that she came from a different culture was by now glaringly obvious and the fact that The Jackson Five were not famous in India was surely another indication of their differing backgrounds. It didn’t matter – it was one of the rare things that didn’t matter by this stage – but it was a graphic illustration of the fact that the housemates, to put it mildly, did not all come from the same place.

And the sniping was getting worse. Shilpa and Cleo had a late-night chat about why Shilpa didn’t like Paris. Shilpa declined to enlarge on whether she had ever been there with the wrong person, which was a relief to some viewers as at least it meant that she was speaking to one of the women in the house. The other three, who by now had turned into a thoroughly unpleasant little gang, seemed to be as happy to bitch about Shilpa behind her back as they were to cause unpleasantness to her face. Indeed, so unpleasant was it all becoming that there was open speculation on the outside that Jade might be turfed out (or, at least, that she should be). Still, none of the gang of three had any idea of the impression they were creating – it was left to the friends, family and business advisers outside to realise just how much it was all going horribly wrong.

Inside, Shilpa was practically leading two lives: as a housemate who was lively and got on with all the men, and a housemate horribly victimised by the women. Away from Jade and co, matters were fine, with Shilpa confiding to Jermaine that she’d like to tie the knot.

‘I wanna get married,’ she said. ‘I have done for a long time.’

‘Dirk would marry you tomorrow,’ said Jermaine. ‘He’s a nice guy.’

‘He’s a very, very nice guy,’ said Shilpa tactfully. ‘I want to get married … but to the right person. Not just because …’

‘He’s about to walk through the door,’ said Jermaine of Dirk.

Intriguingly for Shilpa watchers, she allowed herself to be drawn out on the subject of the men in her life. As a sex symbol in India, she had the rather intriguing task of presenting herself as infinitely desirable and yet also infinitely chaste (something else that set her aside from the British contingent), to date having never so much as kissed a man on screen. There have been various rumours about her private life, but very little of actual substance to go on. Shilpa is plainly aware of something else, too: that mystery adds to a person’s attractiveness and it is better not to tell all.

At any rate, talking with Jermaine, she was a little more open about her past than she had been to date. There had been one actor, she confided, who had wanted to marry her, but she hadn’t felt the same and so they split up. A few months later, he was engaged to someone else. Then there was a long-distance relationship with a musician, which ended because she was more successful than him.

It was then that the notorious chicken row finally blew up. The ugliness that it entailed has already been chronicled here, and the outside world was not alone in expressing concern – some of the other housemates clearly sensed that the gang of three was going much too far. Ian and Cleo both felt the need to talk to Shilpa about it, with Ian saying he thought she was being unnecessarily picked on.

Shilpa rose above it. ‘But I tried not to let it affect me,’ she said. ‘I don’t have anything against any of them.’

‘You haven’t done anything wrong, Shilpa,’ said Ian earnestly.

‘Maybe we eat food differently,’ she replied. ‘It’s just a culture clash.’

You would have thought that if the girls had had an ounce of self-awareness they might have brought a halt to the nastiness now, but that appeared not to be the case. Instead, matters rumbled on in the background, while Shilpa herself simply tried to get on with it. For a start, she expressed a desire to go to Yorkshire – and then worried that no one in Yorkshire would know who she was.

‘Of course,’ protested Ian. ‘Big Brother’s the biggest show on television.’ He was certainly right about how much her fame had already spread.

The flirtation with Dirk continued, although perhaps because some of the other men had by now jumped ship, he was in an unusually tetchy mood. ‘I’m sure girls’ dormitories are like this,’ he said. ‘This is such a girlie show – that’s why all the guys left. It drives you nuts!’

‘I’ve not driven you nuts,’ said Shilpa, sounding rather hurt.

‘No,’ responded Dirk hastily. He, too, was in a mood for confessions: it had been 15 years, he said, since he’d been properly involved in a relationship and even two years since he’d last had a date. Shilpa looked sympathetic and friendly but, again, didn’t take him up on it.

Another entertainment was introduced in the form of a ping-pong table. Alone among the girls, Shilpa played with Dirk, Ian and Jermaine. But the stress of being cooped up with one another for nearly two weeks was now plainly beginning to tell: a few people were looking fed up and tetchy. Circumstances were trying, to say the least, with everyone affected by the bad atmosphere in the house and not just Shilpa. Dirk was right; the feeling was of a particularly bitchy girls’ boarding school and everyone was beginning to feel a touch of ennui.

‘I miss my friends,’ said Ian. ‘I’m used to being away, that’s part of my job, but I’m not used to not having any contact. I miss my dog.’

‘I probably need to have my mobile surgically removed,’ confessed Shilpa.

‘It’s probably good that you’re not using it because of the radiation,’ Jermaine remarked.

Showing a quite extraordinary tolerance, given all that had gone before, Shilpa now started to try to explain the concept of the Hindu festival of Diwali to Jade. It was a valiant attempt, but one that didn’t stand a chance. Shilpa had just got to Rama, when Jade enquired, ‘Is that the Elephant Man?’

Shilpa, rather more politely than Jade deserved, informed her that she was thinking of Ganesha.

Even Big Brother, however, could not have foreseen the next bit of multicultural misunderstanding. The housemates were instructed to come up with a question they have always wanted to know the answer to, and Shilpa thought of a good one – which came first, the chicken or the egg? That was probably too clever for some of the others, though, and so Jo came up with an alternative. The following exchange ensued:

Jo: I’ve got my question – what is the life span of a sperm whale?

Shilpa: What’s the lifespan of a what?

Jo: Of a sperm whale.

Shilpa: Of a spom …?

Jo: A whale. A sperm whale is a type of whale.

Shilpa: A wow? What’s that?

Jo: Am I saying it wrong?

Jade (to Shilpa): Beached whale, killer whale … like a dolphin.

Jack: Have you seen Free Willy?

Jo: You really don’t know what a whale is?

Jack: In the sea …

Jade: You know what a shark is, don’t you?

Shilpa finally got it, knowing exactly what a whale was – she simply hadn’t understood Jo’s cockney accent. It did provoke a laugh. But by this time everyone was so sour almost anything could have done it, and later on Jade turned nasty again, although, at the beginning at least, she and Shilpa appeared to be trying to make up. Jade’s comments about Shilpa’s cooking were not personal, she said, adding that she couldn’t work out if Shilpa was genuinely upset. She then suggested she stop cooking. This seemed to upset poor Shilpa all over again: she rushed sobbing to the loos, where Cleo was on hand to comfort her. It was hardly surprising it was getting to her – earlier in the day, Danielle had remarked, ‘I’m fucking pissed off! I want to rip someone’s head off. She’s an annoying bitch.’ Outside, her advisers groaned.

Outside, of course, there was by now an absolute furore, but still the housemates themselves were totally unaware of what was going on. Shilpa, wearing a large pair of sunglasses to hide swollen eyes, emerged in the morning to be comforted by Jermaine and Cleo, both of whom appeared horrified by what was going on. Neither, however, for whatever reason, was able to stop it, and told Shilpa, probably rightly, that it all boiled down to a clash of cultures. Still trying hard to be reasonable to everyone, Shilpa said that she appreciated Jade’s honesty. Elsewhere in the house, not only was this graciousness not reciprocated but matters swiftly went from bad to worse.

Jade decided to tell the others about a nightmare she’d just had: that Shilpa was kicking her and Shilpa’s cousin appeared to pull Danielle’s hair. Whether this was her conscience telling her that this was pretty much what she deserved, or merely an attempt to gang up on Shilpa even more, it actually seemed to provoke a small crisis in Danielle. Despite the fact that she had been joining in the unpleasantness with gusto, she went to the bedroom to tell Shilpa that no one had bad feelings towards her and that she didn’t want her to be left out. This unlikely rapprochement was not to last. For a moment, at least, hostilities were suspended, with Shilpa even offering her some cream to soothe her skin. Danielle accepted, but was soon back on the rampage once more.

Amidst all of this, Shilpa was conscious that not only did she have to put on a good show for herself when it came to being in the house, but that she was, after all, representing India as well. And so, when Jermaine expressed an interest in the Taj Mahal, Shilpa was able to tell him that the emperor Shahjehan built it for his wife Mumtaz and then cut off the hands of the builders so that they could not build another one like it. Jermaine looked suitably impressed by this gory tale.

Ian, it appeared, was interested in India, too: namely, was it acceptable for women to show a bit of cleavage? No problem, said Shilpa – as long as it was tastefully done.

The next test was set. The housemates were to dress up in splendid clothing for a red-carpet event, which turned out to be a red-carpet assault course in which they had an obstacle race through a VIP pit filled with rubbish, a Champagne Fountain and a Crawl of Fame. If they got through it in nine minutes, they would receive luxury provisions; if they failed, it would just be the basics. Hampered by formal evening clothes, it actually took 10 minutes for the housemates to crawl through. This meant that only basic rations were available, which went on to provoke yet another row, when Jo accused Shilpa of being too controlling. This time Shilpa refused to be upset and told Cleo how funny it was that people ended up fighting over tea and ketchup. It was a very good point.

Dirk’s pursuit, meanwhile, was as ardent as ever. On hearing that Shilpa had been born in 1975, he commented that he was reborn in 1975. He also said that he wanted to see Shilpa in a film in which she was the seductress.

‘You should see Dus – it means 10,’ Shilpa told him.

‘You did 10?’ asked a slightly gobsmacked Dirk.

‘I was an ATC agent – a very serious kind of movie, the first time ever a heroine did an action sequence,’ she replied. ‘I jump and I kick.’

‘When did you do that?’ asked Dirk.

‘Two years back,’ Shilpa replied.

But, elsewhere in the house, the unpleasantness continued. Jade and Jo continued to bitch about Shilpa, now deciding that it was her laugh that was an irritant. Jade imitated her saying, ‘Eeeeek!’ Jo said she had to go out of the room when Shilpa laughed. By this time, with the clamour outside reaching ever new heights, Channel 4 bosses were beginning to realise that they must somehow bring all this bullying and savagery to an end.