We’re barely a week into the 20th series of Celebrity Big brother and we are beginning to see the stars unravel.
Already at each other’s throats are Trisha with “Jam” (that’s Sam and Jordan to the rest of us), who fell out during a task when Trisha ordered Jordan to be quiet.
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But in last night’s episode a new feud kicked off between Paul “Dangerous” Danan and Karthik Nagesan that soon got ugly.
While some of the housemates were lounging around on the couches, Paul, who with Helen Lederer and Derek Acorah had previously won a “private members” task which would see them being served by the rest of the “riff-raff” housemates, called upon The Apprentice star to fetch him a refill of his drink.
However, when he did, he do so by calling Karthik “Kathar”, which the mono-browed fella took exception to.
“Who’s Qatar?” he demanded of Paul. “Are you being racist, Paul? My name’s Karthik, dude.”
A bewildered Paul responded, “Kathar?”
“No,” Karthik replied. “Qatar is a middle eastern airways. My name is not Qatar!”
When he made Paul say his name properly, Karthik said: “Good boy, what do you want?”
His nose slightly out of joint, Paul glumly hit back: “I don’t want anything from you. And don’t call me boy. And don’t call me racist.”
When the other housemates heard what Karthik had said, they jumped to Paul’s defence, understanding how much trouble being branded a racist can cause.
“What a BLEEPING BLEEP,” Sam said, while Jemma echoed: “That’s BLEEPING out of order. That’s not cool.”
Later in the garden, Paul went to speak to Karthik and said: “Look dude, don’t play the racist card with me.”
“And don’t call me Qatar airways,” Karthik snapped back.
“I didn’t call you any airways,” Paul defended, explaining, “I’ve been calling you Kathar all night because someone said your name like that by mistake all night, so it’s been jokes. But then you brought out the racist thing.”
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Karthik tried to explain that he was joking when he had accused Paul of being racist, but Paul wasn’t happy.
“You weren’t joking, you brought out the racist card. That’s serious BLEEP in this house,” he argued.
“Well remember people’s name next time,” Karthik said, to which Paul raged “I know your BLEEPING name,” before storming back into the house.
Viewers were divided by the altercation, with some thinking Paul had indeed made a racist comment, while others could see it was just a joke. Others thought Paul had handled the situation well.