And the Sunday Mirror can reveal that BB itself was hit by a new racism storm in the final week.

Singer Ziggy Lichman used the "N-word" in the BB garden - but the scenes were cut. And unlike contestant Emily Parr 19, who used the same word early in the series, he was not thrown out of the house.

On Thursday, just after 11pm as the housemates drank in the garden, Ziggy, 26, sipped a cider and said: "Trigger n***er" - a mistaken reference to a lyric by U.S. rapper 50 Cent.

Ziggy was ordered into the Diary Room and warned he would be booted out if he repeated the word. The shame-faced housemate later apologised to Brian Belo, 19, who had heard the comment. Brian - who on Friday became the show's first black winner - forgave him at once, saying: "We've lived with each other for 11 weeks and I know you're not like that."

Bb bosses then cut out a string of references to the outburst from the show's live broadcast on Friday. The coverup came even though they had insisted they would not tolerate racism or racist words.

A spokesman said: "Channel 4 acted swiftly and appropriately to tell Ziggy that racially offensive language would not be tolerated under any circumstances. Ziggy was told that any further transgression would mean his immediate eviction. We gave careful consideration to the context of Ziggy's offence. Ziggy was repeating a lyric from a song and his words were not directed at anyone. Nobody in the house was offended and the incident was not broadcast, so no offence was caused to viewers."

Ziggy said: "I apologised to Big Brother. It was purely lyrics from a song. It was never my intention to cause offence to anybody."