danielle lloyd

Biography

Lloyd was born in Penny Lane, Liverpool in 1983. Her parents, Jackie and Arthur Lloyd are a bank manager and an engineer, respectively. At the age of 3 months, Lloyd contracted whooping cough, resulting in damage to her lungs. This led her to developing asthma.

She attended St Hilda's High School for Girls where she achieved nine GCSEs and continued her studying A levels Biology and Chemistry. Lloyd was a keen on sports as a child, and competed nationally for the Sports Acrobatics Liverpool Team at the Centre of Excellence.

At age 16 Lloyd began modelling, frequently entering competitions in and around Liverpool. Upon finishing her academic studies, she decided to pursue a career in modelling and also trained as a beautician.

However, just as she was beginning her career, Lloyd was brutally attacked by her boyfriend of the time. She was dragged from her moving car after an argument with him, suffering terrible grazes and severe bruising to her body and losing most of her hair. Lloyd later said of the attack:

“Deep down you can’t forget what’s happened no matter how much counselling you have. You blame yourself and tell yourself you deserve it – I was given help when I most needed it and I want to be able to help others now. Too many women (1 in 4) suffer domestic violence at some time and support centres such as Women’s Aid aren’t able to answer all of the calls due to being under resourced. I'll always do all that I can to help raise awareness and help people. Being in a violent relationship, you are constantly living in fear – and that’s no way for anyone to live their life”.^[3]

Miss Great Britain

On 26 February 2006, Lloyd was named Miss Great Britain 2006^[4]. However, on November 2, 2006, she was stripped of her title “following recent claims in the press and magazines and the publicity given on the Playboy Web site for their next issue", according to the Miss Great Britain website.^[5] The claim they were referring to was that Lloyd had been dating Teddy Sheringham, who was one of the judges of the pageant, for more than two months before her victory. This was reported by the media after she allegedly said in an interview that Sheringham bought her a pair of shoes for Christmas.^[6] Lloyd continues to claim that the relationship started after the pageant, and that the interview was made up. She attributes her topless shoot for the December 2006 issue of Playboy as the primary reason for the loss of her title.^[7]

Lloyd has recently appeared in FHM and Maxim magazines and written a column for celebrityspotlight.co.uk.

On 11 January 2007 it was revealed that Lloyd was being sued by the Miss Great Britain company for breaking her contract and bringing the company into disrepute. The company is asking for full revelation of the sums she earned for the Playboy pictures, plus costs^[8].

Other work

Lloyd made a memorable appearance on BBC One's Test the Nation. When asked "Who was Winston Churchill - a rapper, US President, the PM or King?", Lloyd answered "Wasn't he the first black president of America? There's a statue of him near me - that's black."^[9]

Celebrity Big Brother 5

Lloyd joined Celebrity Big Brother UK on January 3, 2007, at the start of the series. She was the second housemate to enter the Big Brother House.^[10]. On January 12, 2007, she revealed that she was already "best mates" with fellow Celebrity Big Brother housemate, Jade Goody.

Racism and Bullying

Lloyd garnered significant negative publicity when thousands of complaints were filed with Ofcom after she and other housemates including Jade Goody and Jo O'Meara were accused of bullying and making racist remarks towards their fellow house mate, Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty, calling her "a dog" and telling her to "fuck off home".^[11][12]

This behaviour also created an international outcry gaining heavy coverage in the Indian media. Gordon Brown, the British Chancellor of the Exchequer visiting India at the time, condemned the programme on the grounds that he is against anything which might damage the perception that Britain is a country of tolerance.^[13] In a statement on January 17 Channel 4 defended the programme against charges "of overt racism or racial abuse"^[14].

But Trevor Phillips, head of the Commission for Equality and Human Rights, said "What we are seeing is a noxious brew of old-fashioned class conflict, straightforward bullying, ignorance and quite vicious racial bigotry,". He doubted events on Celebrity Big Brother were part of a broader problem. [2]

Specific comments Lloyd has made about Shetty include "She wants to be white", "She's a dog" and "They eat with their hands in India, don't they - or is that China? You don't know where her hands have been."^[15] In another outburst, Lloyd said "do you get stubble?". [3]

On January 17, 2007, Lloyd said Shetty should "fuck off home", adding that "she can't even speak English properly".^[16] Also, after a similar comment by Goody, Lloyd laughed and said to Goody, "That was fucking fantastic, I loved it, I think she should fuck off home". [4]

When confronted by Big Brother in the Diary Room about why she made the last comment ("I think she should fuck off home"), she simply said "I don't know" and claimed she didn't recall saying it. She admitted that she must have said it for Big Brother to have asked her about it and added that it could be taken in a 'bad' way. She concluded that she would talk to Shilpa to make sure she didn't feel excluded in the house, which she did, briefly, the following morning.

A newspaper interview made before Celebrity Big Brother, from November 2006, revealed Lloyd's anti-immigration views: "If I was (a politician), I'd get more people into work and stop people coming into the country. There's so many people who come into England because they know they can get benefits. People who already live here should get the jobs".^[17]

As a result of her behavior on the show, Danielle Lloyd lost six-figure modelling contracts with motorcycle insurance firm Bennetts and fashion label Rocawear. ^[18][19]