“God has blessed us with a beautiful baby boy. Both mother and baby are fine. I am thrilled to bits,” her husband Raj Kundra announced on Twitter.

In another tweet he thanked staff at the Hinduja Hospital in suburban Mumbai where the baby was born.

Shetty, 36, who together with Kundra owns a stake in the Indian Premier League cricket team Rajasthan Royals, was the victim of allegedly racist bullying by the late Jade Goody during the 2007 “Celebrity Big Brother” reality series.

The controversy sparked international headlines, and Shetty went on to win the series.

Shetty has not broken through into major film roles, but she has remained one of Bollywood’s most talked-about and photographed figures. AFP