In the past week, Celebrity Big Brother moved from being TV entertainment to a national race debate and an international diplomatic incident.
Here are some of the key quotes - from participants in the show and key figures in the real world.
SUNDAY 14 JANUARY
Shilpa Shetty: "Why do they hate me? Why am I detested? I feel like I'm losing my dignity.
"I'm the only one they are mean to, I don't know why, nobody is mean to anyone else except me. I'm scared to say anything else. They've pushed me to the brink."
Jade Goody to Shetty: "You're a liar and a fake. You're a liar. You're not in Neverland here, you're not no princess here you're normal. You are normal. You are normal Shilpa and learn to live with it.
"You need a day in the slums. Go in your community and go to all those people who look up to you and be real."
Danielle Lloyd: "I think she should f**k off home."
Cleo Rocas to Shetty: "I don't think there's anything racist in it."
Shetty: "It is, I'm telling you."
WEDNESDAY 17 JANUARY
Goody: "I couldn't think of her surname. Why would I be talking to someone like that, I don't know what her surname is. What is it? Shilpa Cookamada, Shilpa whatever Rockamada, Shilpa Poppadom. It was like that, literally come out like that.
"There was no fault or no racial anything meant in any of those comments. It's not in me to be racial about somebody or to somebody because I wouldn't. It was just a tongue in cheek, Shilpa Poppadom."
Shetty, referring to her previous opinion that Jade was racist: "I take that back. I thought it was because everybody was having an argument with me...
"You know, people say things in a fit of anger and I stand corrected. I don't feel that there was any racial discrimination happening from Jade's end. I think there are a lot of insecurities from her end but it's definitely not racial."
Shetty to Goody: "I don't think you're racist. But it did come across as kind of racial, what you said even before that. I didn't hear you say it. Your mum used to address me as Indian..."
UK Prime Minister Tony Blair: "I've not seen the particular programme in question and therefore can't comment on it.
"But of course, I would agree entirely with the principle that we should oppose racism in all its forms."
UK Chancellor Gordon Brown: "I understand that in the UK there have already been 10,000 complaints from viewers about these remarks, which people see, rightly, as offensive.
"I want Britain to be seen as a country of fairness and tolerance. Anything detracting from this I condemn."
Indian Minister for External Affairs Anand Sharma: ''It has caused indignation, it is most unfortunate, and any kind of racism - or racist slur - is unacceptable in any civilised society.''
THURSDAY 18 JANUARY
UK Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell: "I think this is racism being presented as entertainment, and I think it is disgusting.
"My personal view is that this has caused enormous offence not only abroad but to the Indian community here."
Comments