Shilpa Shetty in India's Big Brother

By Shilpa Jamkhandikar

MUMBAI (Reuters) - Shilpa Shetty will be a part of India’s take on the reality TV show "Celebrity Big Brother" which the Bollywood actress had won last year, a channel spokesperson said.

Shetty "has been roped in" for ''Bigg Boss'' on the newly launched television channel Colors, Sonia Huria said without specifying her role in the show.

But sources close to the 33-year-old actress said she had agreed to host the second season of the reality show in India and would begin shooting for it soon.

In January last year, Shetty beat 13 other "Celebrity Big Brother" contestants, including television personality Jade Goody and some other housemates whose treatment of Shetty generated thousands of complaints, dominated headlines and even prompted a sponsor of the show to pull out.

The actress was called a "dog" on the show and some housemates refused to learn her name, referring to her as “the Indian” and "Poppadom". But Shetty played down allegations that she had been the victim of racial abuse.

"Bigg Boss", which first aired on the Sony channel in November 2006, follows the international format of the reality TV show. Participants from Bollywood and India’s television industry spend several days cooped up in a specially-designed house under 24-hour surveillance, with no access to telephones or television.

Each week, one of them is voted out.

The first season of "Bigg Boss," hosted by Bollywood actor Arshad Warsi, was only a moderate success even though the show’s producers had hoped to capitalize on the country’s obsession with celebrities.

Rajesh Kamat, CEO of Colors channel, said the second season of the show would premiere on the channel in August this year.