Daily News & Analysis
LONDON, Jan 25: Jade Goody, Bollywood actor Shilpa Shetty's strongest critic, was evicted from the House with 82 per cent of the vote, in the reality television show Celebrity Big Brother, here on Saturday.
Shilpa and Jade were earlier nominated for eviction.
Shilpa faced racist comments from her rivals in the House and the issue stirred up a controversy, with nearly 40,000 complaints pouring in.
Jade had admitted that she was far more scared of being evicted on Friday night than she ever was in her previous Big Brother incarnation, the official web site reported.
"I'm nervous about being booted out," she had told Big Brother in the Diary Room. "It was different four years ago because I had nothing to lose. Now I'm a known person and there are people that like me. I've got a fan base and I'm scared of being rejected."
What worried her most was being perceived as a racist, an issue on which she tried to set the record straight, the web site said.
"I said something regarding Shilpa's surname that I think may have caused offence to people outside," she said. "It wasn't meant in a racist way at all and it worries me that people may think of me as a racial person that makes racial comments. I never would, I've not been brought up like that."
Jade says the Bollywood star was on her side, but she was not sure if everyone will be, the web site reported.
She continued: "Shilpa says she knows I'm not racist, but the press have a lot of power and if they want to print I'm racial... that could influence a lot of people and I could be evicted for the wrong reasons."
"Fair enough if people vote me out because they don't like me, but if it's because they think I'm a racist b**** I'll be worried about walking out - because that's not me."
The 25-year-old was widely expected to be evicted by public vote, after her verbal assaults on Shilpa caused an outcry in Britain and India.
"In all honesty I'm disgusted with myself," said Goody, 25, after emerging from the household and learning from programme presenter Davina McCall in a studio interview about the full-scale of the row she had caused.
"I look like a complete and utter nasty small person -- the sort of person I don't like myself," she said in the post-eviction interview on Channel 4 television after viewing footage played back to her.
"I am not a racist and I sincerely, with my hand on my heart, apologise to anyone I have offended out there," she said.
The contestants, who are kept in a special compound where they are filmed 24 hours a day, will know little of the controversy the show has triggered.
Channel 4, which airs the programme, cancelled a planned news conference on Friday with the evictee and banned crowds that normally greet him or her as they exit the house.
The row has prompted intense debate about whether Shilpa's treatment constitutes racism, and to what extent the unseemly scenes that have reduced the 31-year-old to tears are a reflection of British society.
Shilpa has been called a dog on the show. Housemates refused to learn her name and referred to her as The Indian and Poppadom.
A major sponsor of the show pulled out, two contestants have had commercial deals suspended or cancelled and top politicians have weighed into the row.