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could never be neutral about Jade Goody – when she first applied for Big Brother she provoked a mixed reaction amongst the team. Whatever anyone thought, the fundamental truth was that Jade was, in herself, hugely interesting and entertaining. Sure enough, when the show went on air she appalled and enthralled people in equal measure. I was the man who made the phone call that changed Jade’s life forever. When I called to say she was in the house I was met with a barrage of screams and the sound of her dropping the phone. As viewers, our relationship with Jade was as complicated as she was herself – we loved her in her vulnerable moments and loathed her when she puffed herself up to release some of the vitriol she was capable of. But through it all the overriding thing I remember about Jade is her courage. She wasn’t afraid to be who she was and, in the end, she faced her awful disease with characteristic bravery. She was a comet that shot through the dull, over PR-ed celebrity firmament and I will really, really miss her.’

      Phil Edgar Jones

      Executive producer, Big Brother

      ‘As a GP I have had a surge of women attending for smears. Some of these women have come up to nine years late for their smears and I have asked them “what led you to attend after all this time?” Most of them have talked about Jade. These women have not attended previously as they have been anxious about the procedure, and it has been a source of great satisfaction to me that they have felt a sense of relief at getting it over and done with and have realised it’s not such a big deal. The national screening programme for cervical cancer is a proven and effective way to prevent cancer and its essential that women take it up when offered. It is clear that Jade’s tragic story has touched many thousands of women in the UK in a very positive way and will almost certainly have a real impact on women’s health for many years to come.’

      Dr Emma Naylor, General Practitioner

      The ‘Jade Goody’ effect saw a massive increase in the number of women going for cervical screening, according to cancer specialists. A university in south-east London recorded 21 per cent more women coming for smear tests since Jade was diagnosed with cervical cancer in August 2008. For more information about coping with cancer, go to www.macmillan.org.uk

       Prologue

      ‘It’s just a heavy period – nothing to worry about.’

      That was what the doctors had said to me when I was rushed into hospital after collapsing from severe bleeding (for the fourth time in as many years).

      I still have those words ringing in my ears now. Ringing, banging, screaming, SHOUTING in my ears. Because that turned out not to be the case.

      I was actually suffering from the aggravated stage (i.e. very dangerous) of cervical cancer. What’s more, I’d been carrying the nasty disease around with me for at least the last two years.

      And, despite all the tests I’d had, it hadn’t been detected.

      I was now being told that, if nothing had been done about it, I’d have been dead within three months. I’ve had some things thrown at me in my time but this took the bloody biscuit. Was there anything more that could happen to me?

      Just like everything else in my life, the news that I had cancer was played out in the most public way possible – on live TV. In a weird twist of fate I was now a housemate on Bigg Boss – the Indian version of Celebrity Big Brother. And it was here, in the familiar surroundings of a diary room chair, that I was once again told my fate. Only this time I wasn’t being told that I should put on some clothes or be quiet; I wasn’t being told that the public wanted me out; I was being told something much more serious, and something that I had absolutely no control over.

      I had cancer.

      And I needed to go back to the UK for treatment immediately.

      The night before I flew home I lay in the bath in my hotel room for what seemed like hours. I felt numb. How had it come to this? Why hadn’t it been detected before? Was I going to die? What would my boys do if something happened to me? Does this mean I can never have kids again? If I stay in this bath any longer am I going to turn into a prune?

      Ironically, what upset me most of all at that time was the fact that I had to leave India just as I was starting to redeem myself for all that had happened …

       The Voice of Big Brother

      Normal human behaviour in the Big Brother house includes the participants rowing and making up. And what even many of the show’s biggest fans cannot believe is that such events are unplanned. The manipulative, all-seeing producers must have chosen Jade and Shilpa in order to provoke racial conflict. They do not understand that Big Brother is 12 characters in search of a story. The producers put this group together, but the cast wrote the script. And no one knew in advance what that script would be. With 35 cameras, 20 security staff and a production team of 200, it is carefully managed. There are rules which the housemates must abide by, including prohibitions on violent or threatening behaviour. Of course they fall out and take sides from time to time, but the production team finds that the housemates usually resolve their differences, as happened on this occasion when Jade and Shilpa made up. All sorts of things occur in the house, but it is absurd to claim that this series was designed to serve up racism as entertainment. Indeed, was racism involved at all?

      No doubt about it, according to the Sun, the Mirror and the News of the World (‘Vile racist’, ‘Vile Jade Goody’). But the many columnists who debated the issue were evenly split between racism, bullying and class as the motive for the fallout. The complaints to Channel 4 were also divided. The point is that you cannot be certain about a person’s motives. So this was never an open-and-shut case. As it happens, I know Jade Goody and I do not believe her to be remotely racist. Her father [was] mixed race. She spent nine weeks in the Big Brother house in 2002 with three black people without the hint of a racist attitude. She had a blazing row with one of them, Adele, but that was about verrucas.

      Jade certainly has a temper and may be prone to bullying – not an attractive trait, but not a crime either.

      Peter Bazalgette, chief creative officer of Endemol,

       Prospect magazine, March 2007

       Introduction

      December 2006

      ‘John, it’s going to kill me off. Going back on Big Brother will be the death of me. I just have this feeling.’

      ‘Don’t be a fucking idiot,’ he laughed. John Noel, the agent I’d been with ever since I emerged from the Big Brother house in 2002, wasn’t one to mince his words. ‘Come on, Jade, get your head out of your arse. What have you got to lose? You’re going to make money out of it; and you’re hardly in there for any time at all. The worst that can happen is that you don’t win it. It’s a great opportunity. What can go wrong?’

      5 January 2007

      Time to face the crowd. Wow! What an over-whelming experience.

      I have never had such a reception in my life. It sounded like the entire audience huddled outside the Celebrity Big Brother house were cheering my name. ‘Jade, we love you!’ ‘Jade, you look great!’ ‘Jade to win Celeb Big Brother!’ They were shouting for Jack too, and I could see how chuffed he was to be recognised in his own right. It was like we were some sort of golden couple – I don’t think even Posh and Becks would have got a better reaction. People were going properly mental for us. It was all the more surreal because this was exactly where I stood when I went into the same house (well, except for a few changes of furniture) five years ago. Yet back then no one had the foggiest idea

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