The 11th edition of Indian reality show Bigg Boss premiered on Sunday night with 18 housemates introduced by host, the Bollywood star Salman Khan. The new season will see a mix of celebrities and what the show calls commoners, who will be locked up in the Bigg Boss house for more than 100 days.
Bigg Boss, India’s highest rated show, is the country’s version of the Big Brother reality show.
The mega launch saw Khan shake a leg with Varun Dhawan, who stars in Judwaa 2, the sequel to Khan’s hit 1997 film. Dhawan’s co-stars Jacqueline Fernandes and Taapsee Pannu also joined in the fun.
The first to enter the house was TV actor Hiten Tejwani who was accompanied by wife Gauri Pradhan for a special performance on the song Prem Ratan Dhan Paayo. Actress Hina Khan, the next housemate, performed a version of Lag Jaa Gale. Then, Benafsha Soonawala and Priyank Sharma from MTV Roadies and Splitsvilla gave a performance of Badshah’s hit number Mercy, before joining the rest of the housemates.
Sapna Choudhary, a Haryanvi singer, dancer and YouTube sensation also joined the housemates, along with double PhD holder and occult specialist Shivani Durgah.
There’s also Jyoti Kumari, daughter of a peon from the small town of Masaudi, Bihar, and engineer Bandagi Kalra, a self-proclaimed beauty-with-brains. Housemate Puneesh Sharma is the owner of Playboy Club in Gurugram, while Akash Dadlani is a rapper from Mumbai. Arshi Khan claims to be a famous personality in Pakistan and is rumoured to have previously dated cricketer Shahid Afridi while Zubair Khan hails from Mumbai’s notorious underworld family and is on the show in a bid to win his children back from his estranged wife.
Actress Shilpa Shinde danced her way in unaware that producer Vikas Gupta, with whom she has had a public spat, was next to enter the house. Gupta admitted later he wouldn’t have been part of Bigg Boss this year if he knew Shinde was too.
The drama has truly begun.
Don’t miss it
Bigg Boss 11 airs in the UAE from Monday to Friday at 10.30pm and Saturday to Sunday at 9pm on Colours TV.
