Dying British TV star marries - RIP March 22 #6; wedding video #8

**pomtzu** · 02-22-2009, 06:32 PM

If she's doing it for the money to provide for her kids when she's gone - then I say "good for her"! At least it's about the children and not herself, as it is with another well known "Mom of Many" that has been in the news lately!

**Laura's Babies** · 02-22-2009, 07:09 PM

I admire her for what she is doing! She is making sure her children have a future by not leaving them penniless. It would be easier to fade away and just die quietly.. Patrick Swayze and that professor who gave his last lecture (it is on you tube I think).. they called attention to themselves and the fact that they had/have cancer and THAT can only help the cause. I admire her for doing this and bringing it back in the limelight, and ensure to her children's future.

**DJFyrewolf36** · 02-23-2009, 03:56 AM

I admire her if she is calling attention to this for her kids and to make sure they are taken care of financially. I hope the guy she married is ready and willing to step in and take care of those kids after she passes. All the money in the world can't buy love...

**Catty1** · 03-22-2009, 11:24 AM

http://www.cbc.ca/arts/tv/story/2009...h-reality.html

British reality TV star Jade Goody loses cancer fight
Last Updated: Sunday, March 22, 2009 | 10:17 AM ET
The Associated Press

British reality TV star Jade Goody, a dental assistant whose whirlwind journey from poverty to celebrity to tragedy became a national soap opera, has died.

The 27-year-old had cervical cancer and died in her sleep early Sunday at her home in Essex, southeast England, her publicist Max Clifford said.

Jade Goody poses in 2006 with her autobiography in a London bookstore. (Yui Mok/Associated Press)

Goody gained fame at 21 in 2002 when she joined the reality television show Big Brother, in which contestants live together for weeks and are constantly filmed.

Loud and brash, she became a highly divisive star — initially mocked as an ignorant slob, then celebrated as a forthright everywoman by a hungry tabloid press.

It was a pattern of praise and condemnation that followed her for the rest of her life. Goody sparked debate about race, class and celebrity in Britain.

For some, Goody was a survivor who had overcome a tough childhood in a poor London district. Her father was absent and often in jail, and her mother struggled with drug addiction.

But she was also reviled in the press during her stint on Big Brother for her weight, her big mouth and her apparent lack of general knowledge — she branded the English region of East Anglia "East Angular" and asked whether it was abroad.

She didn't win the show, but she did become a celebrity, earning millions through television and magazine appearances, an autobiography, a perfume and a series of exercise videos.

It was during a followup stint on a celebrity version of Big Brother in 2007 that Goody was labelled a racist bully for her treatment of another contestant, Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty.

Goody bad-mouthed Shetty's cooking of Indian food, mocked her accent and referred to her as "Shilpa Poppadom." While complaints against the show skyrocketed, so did ratings.

'I argue like that with everybody'

Goody's treatment of Shetty sparked anger in India and Britain — even becoming the topic of debate during a House of Commons question-and-answer session with then-prime minister Tony Blair.

A major sponsor suspended its advertising deal with Celebrity Big Brother, and a chain of perfume shops pulled a Goody-endorsed fragrance, ironically named "Shh..."

After television viewers voted to evict Goody from the show, Goody — herself of mixed race — insisted she wasn't a racist.

"I argue like that with everybody. It wasn't just because of the colour of her skin that I was that aggressive," she told Britain's GMTV.

After the eviction, the Indian Tourism Office invited Goody to travel to the country. She did, visiting charity projects and later agreeing to appear on an Indian version of the show.

"The people of India have only seen a small part of me and I'd like to show them that there is more to me," Goody said. "I'm a mother of two, a businesswoman. I can't be all that bad."

While fighting cancer, Jade Goody and her fiance, Jack Tweed, kiss in front of her home in southern England on Feb. 21, a day before their wedding. (Chris Radburn/Associated Press)

It was during filming of the show in the summer of 2008 that Goody received a diagnosis of cervical cancer by telephone from a doctor in Britain. The camera captured the deeply personal moment, which was shown repeatedly on TV in Britain, though not in India.

The progress of her illness was chronicled in detail in the tabloid press and weekly magazines, to the unease of many.

"Goody isn't rich or famous because she won the lottery: she's rich and famous because we bought all those papers and magazines and ghosted books with her on the cover, because we watched her television series, because we cheered when she was good and booed when she was bad, because we sat around discussing her over lunch," wrote columnist India Knight in the Sunday Times.

"Now she's dying, she's making us all feel bad, so we want her to go away, like a broken toy that's stopped being fun."
Sold rights to February wedding

In February, a bald and frail Goody married fiance Jack Tweed in an elaborate event at an elegant countryside hotel outside London. She reportedly sold the photos for more than $1 million US.

Goody defended being paid for interviews and photo shoots.

"People will say I'm doing this for money," she said. "And they're right, I am. But not to buy flash cars or big houses — it's for my sons' future if I'm not here.

"I don't want my kids to have the same miserable, drug-blighted, poverty-stricken childhood I did."

Before her rise to fame, Goody worked for a period as a dental nurse. She had an unhappy childhood in a poor south London neighbourhood.

Her father was a heroin addict who served jail time for robbery and died in 2005, and her mother is a former crack addict who lost the use of an arm in a motorcycle accident.

While many empathized with Goody as she had surgery and chemotherapy in the public eye — filming part of the experience for another TV series — she inspired vitriol in others. A website was even set up, devoted to predicting when she would die.

In February 2009, Goody's publicist said the cancer had spread to her liver, bowel and groin.

Goody is survived by Tweed and her sons, Bobby and Freddie, with an ex-boyfriend, television presenter Jeff Brazier. She also is survived by her mother, Jackiey Budden.

Budden told reporters Sunday: "Family and friends would like privacy at last."
© The Canadian Press, 2009

**carole** · 03-22-2009, 05:59 PM

I was very sad to hear this, may she rest in peace, and her family find comfort at this very sad time, so young a life to be taken, i feel so sorry for her new husband and children, i hope she did make a lot of money so at least they can all have a decent life, she certainly did not have it easy in life and it is very sad.

**Catty1** · 03-22-2009, 06:20 PM

Wedding Video excerpts - if you don't get a lump in your throat....
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/c...id=16264285001

celebs remember her - very nice, actually.

http://link.brightcove.com/services/...id=17200853001