Racism, or Entertainment, on 'Celebrity Big Brother'?

LONDON, Jan. 18, 2007 — -- Britain's popular TV show "Celebrity Big Brother" has become embroiled in an international uproar surrounding allegations that contestants have made racist comments about an Indian film-star-turned contestant.

It was enough to knock the British chancellor's high-profile visit to India off the front pages.

Reality doesn't get much more surreal than this. Maybe that is what provocative reality television is all about.

It is unlikely that the four participants at the center of this controversy -- Indian Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty, glamour model Danielle Lloyd, singer Jo O'Meara, and tabloid fixture Jade Goody -- had any idea of the global fracas that would erupt when they had the first of their many run-ins a couple of weeks ago.

The four women are housemates in "Big Brother," the original version of the show that was brought to the United States and helped jump-start the reality TV craze.

The contestants, some are actual stars in this version, are "incarcerated," along with five other contestants, until weekly public voting evicts them from the show.

But this time, the battle to be the last man (or woman) standing has assumed some ugly, allegedly racist undertones.

It all began less than two weeks ago when Goody's mother, Jackiey, a former contestant on the show, refused to refer to Shetty by name, calling her "the Indian." Then, Lloyd and O'Meara took to mocking the actress's Indian accent.

Last weekend, the griping began in earnest, with Goody saying that Shetty "makes my skin crawl" and Lloyd likening her to "a dog."

And on Monday night, the three women refused to eat a roast chicken prepared by Shetty, complaining that she had touched it with her hands. "They eat with their hands in India, don't they -- or is that China?" Lloyd asked before adding, "You don't know where her hands have been."

After yet another row Wednesday night, both Lloyd and Goody -- herself the product of mixed parentage -- told the actress to return home and, in Goody's words, to "go back to the slums."