And The Winner is - Shilpa Shetty!

Shilpa Shetty is the winner of Celebrity Big Brother 2007. For her it was not an easy win. She was reduced to tears, she was made fun of, she was the object of racial remarks and yet through it all she handled herself with the dignity and poise befitting a queen. She is a real class act. She deserved to win and that is the way the voting viewers saw it. She won with 63% of the vote.

[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=gIOuYSkVGmA]

In second place was Jermaine Jackson, who more than anyone else held the group together and tried to diffuse the tensions between the other participants. They all looked to him for advice and guidance.

With her popularity soaring as a result of her performance on the show, Shilpa Shetty is set to cash in.

The offers are already trickling in, with the Daily Mirror bidding £150,000 (Rs 1.2 crore) for the first interview after the reality show, surpassing The Sun’s £100,000 (Rs 80 lakh) bid.

Shilpa, who was paid Rs 3 crore to appear on Celebrity Big Brother, will have advertisers lining up outside her door back home too, said industry sources. In fact, agents said, she is likely to be sought by advertisers across Asia and would command fees of several hundred thousand pounds.

In India, the choice of products she would endorse could range from designer apparel to jewellery and personal care products.

Nirvik Singh, chairman (South-East Asia) of Grey Global Group, said: “The opportunities could range from Shilpa becoming the face of an international cosmetic brand to financial institutions targeting Indians abroad.” Her income, said Singh, could be as high as Rs 4 crore per endorsement.

Shetty has hired British celebrity publicist Max Clifford to help develop her career in Britain. He estimated Sunday that she could earn 2 million dollars in the next year from new contracts after appearing on the show.

"It's been a huge success for her because of how she's handled these nasty attacks with dignity," Clifford said on British Broadcasting Corp. television.

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[...] She is a re-known Bollywood actress and the most recent winner of the British version of Celebrity Big Brother 2007, in which she was reduced to tears, made fun of, and was the object of racial remarks. She handled [...]