Jade Goody, 27, died 2009.

Jade Goody

Jade Goody, who has died aged 27, was catapulted into the limelight in 2003 by the apparently none-too-glittering achievement of coming fourth on Big Brother; so began a roller-coaster career that made her the poster girl of the curious contemporary cult of talentless celebrity.

Although she was frequently vilified, Jade Goody's final days as a victim of cancer saw her transformed into a serious figure whose frankness about her illness was deemed by some to be beneficial to the wider community. Her decision to live out those days in public earned her large sums of money from the media, but she insisted that her motive for this was to assure the future of the two young sons she left behind.

The first time she was mentioned in the press, in May 2002, Jade Goody was described as a "pretty dental nurse, 20, from London". But 24 hours later, as she began her gobby, ignorant trajectory in the Big Brother house, The People went on the attack under the headline: "Why we must lob the gob". Before long it was open season. The Sun called her a hippo, then a baboon, before launching its campaign to "vote out the pig". The Sunday Mirror rejected porcine comparisons on the ground that it was "insulting – to pigs".

Inside the "BB" house, Jade Goody found herself in bed with her male housemate, PJ, who ran away, shrieking. Her drunken striptease in a drinking game rigged by the male contestants ("Me kebab is showing!") forced even Channel 4 to blank the screen. "Here she is: fat-rolled, Michelin girl Jade in all her preposterous lack of glory," thundered the Daily Mirror the next day. "Naked as the day Dr Frankenstein made her." Jade's then boyfriend chipped in: "She's a sex-crazed, lying, two-timing drunken tart, and I hope I never see her again."

Jade Goody's main function, as she put it herself, was to be an "escape goat". She was the modern equivalent of Barnum and Bailey's "bearded lady" – a pressure valve for the vindictive rage of the mob and their tribunes in the Red Tops. Polls suggested that she was more unpopular even than Saddam Hussein (a boxer, said Jade). Such was the public venom it was feared that things might get dangerously out of hand. Some people actually travelled across England to the BB house, where they waved placards and greeted her emergence, spilling out of a pink dress several sizes too small, with chants of "burn the pig". Channel 4 was even reported to be considering smuggling her out of the country for her own safety.

But, no sooner had she hit rock bottom then she bounced back up again. The tabloid campaign had developed into such an orgy of hate that it inspired a retaliation in her defence. Viewers, it seemed, warmed to her malapropisms, guilelessness and obvious vulnerability.

Told by their readers that they had gone too far, journalists began backpedalling furiously. The Mirror congratulated itself on "a brilliantly conceived clandestine campaign to drum up the sympathy vote for the divine Ms Jade Goody". Not to be outdone, the Sun sought to rehabilitate the "princess of Bermondsey". Both papers started the bidding for her "story" at £100,000 – a figure that quickly escalated.

Finding they had struck gold, promoters and advertisers came flocking to her door. For the next four years it was impossible to turn on the television without seeing Jade Goody on some reality show or other. She even had her own scent, Shh!, ("Not actually a smell of me, like. It's not my BO or my feet cheese or nothing") which became a best-seller. There were also Jade Goody fitness DVDs. Along the way, she acquired, cheated on and discarded several boyfriends, gave birth to two sons (the romances, break-ups, pregnancies and births all sold to magazines on an exclusive basis), changed from blonde to brunette and shed three stone.

By 2007, when she made her second visit to the Big Brother house on Celebrity Big Brother (alongside her surgically-enhanced mother Jackie), Jade Goody had become, by her own account, "the most 25th inferlential person in the world" and a bona fide celebrity. She was said to be worth £2-4 million, was the proud owner of three "footballers' wives" style homes, a £60,000 turbo-charged Range Rover and was the "author" of a best-selling autobiography.

It did not take long for the Goody magic to work the second time around, either. "I'm out of here. I'm not ----ing waiting on some moron and her family," said Donny Tourette, a Sid Vicious-wannabe. Next to pack his bags was Ken Russell, who could not continue to live "in a society riddled with evil and hatred" (believed to be a reference to Jackiey rather than Jade).

But what should have been a triumphant return to the scene of past glories soon began to turn to disaster, when Jade Goody became embroiled in a row over an Oxo cube with the Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty. Days of tension, during which Jade called her nemesis "Shilpa Poppadom", ended in a foul-mouthed tirade from Jade in which insults such as "Shilpa ----awallah" and "go back to the slums" were bandied about. Booted out of the house, Jade Goody was branded a racist bully. In India she was burned in effigy. The television regulator Ofcom received more than 40,000 complaints from outraged members of the public.

Retribution was swift. Her scent was withdrawn from the stores; the paperback version of her autobiography was scrapped; the television offers dried up and she was dropped by her management company. "Jade, We Hate You – The Nation Turns On Thick Racist Bully!" ran one headline.

Although Jade Goody's value to Big Brother was her famously tactless "motormouth", a career nosedive was not part of the script. The show's producers, Endemol, had recorded a new chat show pilot with her as host and stood to lose money – as did many others. There followed a well-orchestrated campaign of rehabilitation, featuring a public plea for forgiveness and a stage-managed "kiss-and-make-up" session with Shilpa Shetty, followed by a "goodwill visit" to India, where she visited a children's charity, apologised (again) and made a donation.

Jade's rehabilitation was crowned by an invitation by the makers of Bigg Boss, India's equivalent of Big Brother, to take part in their show. She did so in August 2008 and, in the first episode, was seen learning to dance to Bollywood songs. But she was forced to leave abruptly after being told she had cervical cancer.

To most people, the prospect of eight weeks' confinement in the exhibitionistic surroundings of the Big Brother house would be the closest thing to hell. Jade Goody seemed to regard it as a vision of paradise. When she went in through the sliding door, she explained, "It was like no one could get me or hurt me in there... I was safe." Her life story reveals why.

Jade Cerisa Lorraine Goody was born in Bermondsey on June 5 1981. Her father, of mixed race parentage, was a heroin addict and small-time pimp turned career criminal who spent most of his life behind bars, eventually dying of an overdose in the lavatory of the Kentucky Fried Chicken in Bournemouth. Her paternal grandmother, who once ran a brothel, had a crack habit. Her mother, Jackiey, the daughter of a market trader, was described in her daughter's autobiography as a petty thief and "clipper" – a woman who pretends to be a prostitute but runs off with the money instead. Jackiey threw Jade's father out of the house when Jade was 18 months old, after discovering that he had hidden guns under her cot. To add to the confusion, Jackiey herself later came out as a lesbian.

Jade rolled her first joint for her mother when she was four and she took her first puff aged five, an event celebrated by her mother in a family photograph. At about the same time Jackiey was seriously injured in a motorcycle crash and lost the use of her left arm, as a result of which Jade spent much of her childhood in the role of carer. Not that Jackiey appeared grateful. She once beat her daughter so badly she ended up in care.

Jade's schooling, not surprisingly, was chaotic. She was expelled from one school after her mother hit another mother, and from a second when her mother hit a teacher. "Most of my mates at school would arrive home to see their mum hanging out the washing or putting the dinner on," Jade recalled. "I'd come round the corner hoping not to see another police car outside the house."

It was not long before Jade began dishing out the bullying herself, once biting off a chunk of another girl's earlobe ("It wasn't a huge part of her earlobe or anything, just the tip").

As her performance on Big Brother made clear, her years of formal education had left Jade Goody with little knowledge. She thought that a ferret was a bird and abscess a green French drink; that Pistachio painted the Mona Lisa; that Sherlock Holmes invented the flush lavatory; that East Anglia ("East Angular" in Jade-speak) was abroad; and that Rio de Janeiro was "a bloke, innit?"

She eventually attended Bacon's College in Rotherhithe – one of Britain's first City Technology colleges. Following her first appearance on Big Brother, the college felt constrained to emphasise that its exam results had improved since Jade left. She then attended a training course at the Bosco Centre, an institution set up to "serve some of the most disadvantaged and disengaged young people in the community". Again association with Jade caused embarrassment as the centre pointed out that some of its alumni had gone on to university.

After leaving school, Jade eventually found employment as a dental nurse. When she applied for a place in the Big Brother house, however, she was up to her ears in debt, had recently been evicted from a flat in Rotherhithe over £3,000 of unpaid rent and was facing jail over an unpaid council tax bill.

Later, as well as her earnings from celebrity appearances, exclusive interviews, product marketing and the like, Jade Goody opened a beauty salon in Hertfordshire. She chose the name Ugly's, thinking it would appeal to the woman who thinks: "'I'm feeling ugly because I've got no make-up on, no nails and hairy legs,' then they come into our salon and we make them beautiful." The venture rapidly went bust.

Given Jade Goody's status as a media creation, it was perhaps inevitable that when stories began to circulate of a "cancer scare", some assumed it was just another tasteless publicity stunt. That did not prove to be the case. After her initial diagnosis last year, it quickly became clear that her cancer was at an advanced stage. Radical surgery failed to stem its progress and early last month she was told it was terminal.

There was time for one more twist however, as, on February 22, in a blaze of publicity which was said to have earned her close to £1 million, Jade Goody married a 21-year-old carpet fitter, Jack Tweed. In order that the couple could spend their wedding night together, he was allowed to ignore the 7pm curfew which was a condition of his early release from an 18-month prison sentence imposed for assaulting a 16-year-old boy with a golf club.

Her husband survives her with her two sons.Jade Goody, the reality television star, has died of cervical cancer. Jack Tweed, her husband, and her two young sons, Bobby and Freddie, were also the object of intense media scrutiny in the last few weeks of her life.

Jade Goody tragedy helped people think about dying

The death of Jade Goody, the TV reality star, has been "helpful" in making people think about the end of their own lives, according to a poll.

Nearly half of women, 49 per cent, and a third of men, 33 per cent, said the publicity surrounding Goody's death from cancer earlier this year had helped people think about death.

The findings from an online poll of 1,018 adults in Britain commissioned for the public think-tank Theos also showed half the population fears the process of dying.

The survey conducted last month showed 20 per cent admit to fearing both the way they will die and death itself with 30 per cent saying they fear the way they will die but not death itself.

More than a third of people, or 37 per cent, said they would like a Christian funeral with this proportion highest, at 53%, among the over-65 age group.

This figure dwindled to only one in five, or 20 per cent, in the 18 to 24-year-old age group.

The study found 42 per cent of people aged 65 and over said their religious faith helps them to deal with the death of a loved one and prepare for their own death compared with only 23 per cent of 18-24 year olds.

Two thirds, or 66 per cent, of people have seen a dead body, the research found.

A majority, or 60 per cent, backed making euthanasia legal with 59 per cent agreeing that more public money should be given to enable people to die where they choose and as painlessly as possible.

Theos director Paul Woolley said: "This research offers a useful insight into public attitudes regarding a highly personal and emotive subject.

"The different attitudes about death between age groups are especially striking. The fact that we are fearful of dying suggests we need to discuss it more.

"The proportion of people fearing death in society could be explained by the breakdown of an overarching religious narrative in the culture.

"It might also have something to do with the lack of experience people have in dealing with death."

Jade Goody: her life and death in front of the nation

Jade Goody lived her last months in the public eye with every step of her struggle with cancer being played out in front of the nation.

:: August 2008

Goody undergoes a test at an Essex hospital after mysterious collapse. A warts and all documentary capturing her life is filmed for Living TV.

:: August 17 2008

She enters the Bigg Boss house, the Indian version of Celebrity Big Brother.

:: August 19 2008

Breaks down in tears as she is diagnosed with cervical cancer in the diary room of Bigg Boss.
:: September 2008
Releases second autobiography - Jade: Catch a Falling Star - as Tweed is given an 18-month jail sentence after being convicted of attacking a 16-year-old boy with a golf club.
:: January 2009
Goody speaks about losing her hair to chemotherapy before Tweed is released early from jail.
:: February 3 2009
She receives the news her cancer has spread and tumours have been found in her liver, bowel and groin. Undergoes emergency surgery three days later to remove a "golf ball-sized" tumour.
:: February 7 2009
She vows to continue to give interviews and appear in a reality television show as she battles her illness. Publicist Max Clifford says media appearances, including the reality show following her life, help Goody cope with her illness.
:: February 14 2009
After being told she has just months to live, Goody announces plans to marry Tweed. He had proposed to her on the eve of Valentine's Day at her hospital bedside.
Days later, the couple visit Harrods where the reality TV star picks out a "beautiful" wedding dress, a gift from the store's owner Mohamed Al Fayed.
:: February 18 2009
Goody is expected to earn close to £1 million from the television and magazine rights to her wedding after finalising deals with OK! magazine and Living TV.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown wishes her well as she leaves hospital to prepare for her big day.
:: February 20 2009
The Ministry of Justice says the terms of Tweed's curfew, imposed following his release from prison, will be changed to reflect the "exceptional" circumstances during the weekend ceremony.
:: February 21 2009
Goody jokes over her hair loss as she poses with friends wearing comic skull caps on the eve of her wedding.
:: February 22 2009
Her wedding takes place at Down Hall County House Hotel in Hatfield Heath, Essex.
Among the 200 guests were television personalities Richard Madeley, Judy Finnigan and Paul O'Grady.
Mr Clifford describes it as "a wonderful day. A dream day. A day of laughter and tears".
:: February 27 2009
Goody goes into a hospice after suffering hallucinations from drugs administered at her home.
The star is admitted to St Clare's Hospice near Harlow in Essex.
:: March 1 2009
The star returns to the Royal Marsden Hospital, in Fulham, south west London, to relieve her "awful pain".
:: March 2 2009
Goody undergoes an operation at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital to relieve pain in her bowel.
She is transferred to the hospital after being admitted to the Royal Marsden Hospital, in Fulham, south west London.
:: March 3 2009
Jack Tweed's lawyer tells a court Goody has been given less than four weeks to live.
The 21-year-old was convicted of assaulting a taxi driver, an allegation he denied, at Epping Magistrates' Court and will be sentenced on March 26.
:: March 6 2009
Mr Clifford says the planned christening ceremony with her two boys will be held at the chapel of the Royal Marsden Hospital.
It had originally been planned to hold a church service but it was decided Goody was too ill to attend.
:: March 7 2009
Goody says a "final farewell" to some of her closest family and friends as she is christened.
Goody's two sons Bobby, 5, and Freddy, 4, were also christened with their mother during what Mr Clifford describes as a "very short and emotional service" at the Royal Marsden Hospital.
:: March 11 2009
Goody returns home to spend her final days with "all those who are close to her".
She looks frail as she leaves the Royal Marsden Hospital, in London, accompanied by her husband, Jack Tweed, 21.
But Mr Clifford says Goody is "thrilled" to be back at her home in Upshire, Essex.
:: March 12 2009
Jade Goody's wedding airs on Living TV.
March 22 2009
Goody dies in her sleep at 3.14am.