LONDON: Jade Cerisa Lorraine Goody, a dental assistant turned reality TV star whose whirlwind journey from poverty to celebrity to tragedy became a national soap opera and morality tale in Britain, has died. The 27-year-old had cancer and died in her sleep early yesterday at her home in Essex, southeast England, her publicist Max Clifford said.
Clifford said that the actress’ funeral will be an eventful service and a “celebration of life,” as she had desired. He said the funeral would be a “public celebration” just as Goody had lived her life out in the public eye in the last seven years and as “she died the way she lived,” reports thesun.co.uk. “Jade wanted a celebration of her life. It will be very much a Jade Goody Production with Jade doing her own thing her own way. It will be a celebration, but of course there will be a lot of tears,” he said, reports thesun.co.uk.
He also informed that Goody had chosen Bermondsey undertakers for her funeral, “because she was always a Bermondsey girl.”
The funeral service would be held at Goody’s local church, St. John the Baptist in Buckhurst (suburban town in Essex) and after the service, the funeral cortege will pass through Loughton — near her home in Upshire, Essex. No date, however, has been set yet for the tragic star’s funeral but it is likely to take place in the next 10 days.
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 every woman by a hungry tabloid press.
It was a pattern of praise and condemnation that followed her for the rest of her life. Goody became a national touchstone who sparked debate about race, class and celebrity in Britain.
For some, Goody was a survivor who had overcome a tough childhood on a London housing estate. Her father was absent and often in jail, and her mother struggled with drug addiction.
But she also was 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 follow-up stint on a celebrity version of “Big Brother” in 2007 that Goody was labeled 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. 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.