THE CASE OF JADE GOODY

Jade Goody, the reality television personality died on 22nd March 2009, at the age of twenty eight of cervical cancer and is buried in Essex U.K, after living an extremely loud and open life, which was of her own making, duly owned up by her till the very end.

We started knowing Jade Goody from the Celebrity Big Brother 2007 reality show on Channel 4 in which Indian film star Shilpa Shetty participated. Jade Goody’s racial remarks on Shilpa Shetty became big news across the world. May be the resulting sympathy made Shilpa the winner of the show. During the whole show, Shilpa abhorred Jade’s comments (Shilpa Fuckawala, Shilpa Poppadam) and her antics. It is another matter that Shilpa became the new celebrity of the Globe and started making big dough to the extent of coming to partly own The Indian Premier League (IPL) team, The Rajasthan Royals.

Coming back to jade Goody, she is the product of a broken home. Her father, Andrew Robert Goody was of mixed race and was a drug addict and habitual criminal, who served prison sentences including a four-year term for robbery. He died of drug overdose at the age of forty two. Her mother Jackie Budden estranged from her husband when Jade was two years old and brought her up. Jade was qualified as dental nurse.

Jade Goody became instant star in the reality show; Big Brother, in 2002. In addition to her words (loud, open and crass to the extent of guttural), the lady came to lime-light through naked scenes in the show. She is also credited to have shown the first instance of sexual contact in the show with a fellow housemate, as part of a drunken group.

With instant stardom Jade went on to have her own television shows (‘Jade Goody shows all’) and launched her own fragrance products (‘Shh… Jade Goody’). She released her autobiography in 2006 (‘Jade: My Autobiography’). She is said to have earned about 8 million British pounds from all these. During the while she lived with a fellow TV presenter Jeff Brazier and had sired two sons out of the relationship (Bobby & Freddie, now aged 6 and 5 years).

It was during the TV show in 2007 that she learnt that she has cancer and that she would live only for a short duration. Initially she was crest fallen but later showed enough courage to live out her dying to the public. She visited India, patched up with Shilpa Shetty, went back, shaved her head off (her hair started falling due to chemotherapy) married her live-in partner Jack Tweed, who is reputed to have undergone imprisonment for assaulting a boy and a taxi driver) and in all these process made more money from the yellow press before succumbing to cancer in 22nd march 2009.

Jade’s comments are now compiled as ‘Jadeism’ which people read to derive fun. Going through the same, one would realize that most of the pronouncements were blunders which can only come out of a person of poor learning.

Now let us have an overall objective look at Jade Goody’s life and times. For a person of her back ground, would you expect anything better? She proved herself to be sum total of what she is made of, both hereditarily and environmentally. But if she was aware of her deficiencies and shortcomings early on, she could have taken diversion for the better. For example, if she realized of her fathers criminal background, she probably would not have taken another criminal as a life partner and that would have led her to a better life. There is a case of lack of rational thinking and self development missing in her. She went with the flow and lived out her short life. At the end, on hindsight, would she have regretted her actions? Can’t say.

This is another true case of a life response. Look at what she begot for all her deeds and words - death from a dreaded disease at a very early life!

Could she have lived more if she channelized her life better? Food for thought for you.