Rachel Rice: 'BB should not be censored'

Former Big Brother winner Rachel Rice has insisted that the new celebrity series should not be censored.

Celebrity Big Brother returned to Channel 4 last night for its first run since the Shilpa Shetty race row which engulfed the programme in 2007.

Rice, who won last summer's non-celebrity series, has now claimed that producers made the right decision by broadcasting the controversial scenes.

"What happened was really horrible," Rice told Wales Online. "But I think people learned from it and Jade [Goody] apologised and Shilpa's let it go. It was bad but reality is not always nice and things like that do happen in real life so we shouldn't censor it."

Asked about this year's lineup of contestants, she said: "It should be a good year, they've got some good people on it this time."

Show producers recently insisted that Celebrity Big Brother will not be "sanitised" this year.