Shilpa Shetty Biography
On 28 January 2007, Shilpa Shetty was crowned the winner of the British Celebrity Big Brother with 63% of the final vote, after an international racism controversy involving her and fellow contestants Jade Goody, Jo O'Meara and Danielle Lloyd. This was followed by her comeback to films in 2007, when she starred in two major hits, Life in a... Metro and Apne, with her performance in the former earning her positive reviews. Shetty thus re-established her status in the industry. Her younger sister Shamita Shetty is also a Bollywood film actress.
Shilpa Shetty was born in a strict and traditional close-knit family that hails from the matrilineal Bunt community of Dakshina Kannada district, Karnataka. Although she was born in Tamil Nadu, she describes herself as a Mangalorean. She is the eldest daughter of Surendra and Sunanda Shetty, manufacturers of tamper-proof caps for the pharmaceutical industry, and her native language is Tulu although she can speak nearly ten other languages at differing levels, including English, Hindi, Kannada, Marathi, Gujarati, Telugu, Tamil, Urdu and basic French. One of her nicknames is "Silly Pooh".
She attended St. Anthony Girls' High School, located in Chembur, and later attended Podar College. A trained Bharatanatyam dancer, she is also into sports and was the captain of the volleyball team in school and earned a black belt in Karate and currently a dancesport expert and enthusiast.
Shetty currently lives in Mumbai with her parents and younger sister Shamita Shetty, who is a budding Bollywood actress. They worked together once in the film Fareb (2005).
At 5 ft 10 inches (178 cm), Shilpa Shetty is one of the tallest actresses in Bollywood and regularly wears 3 inch heels making her around 6 ft 1.