Jade Goody was a woman of many monikers. “The princess of Bermondsey”, “the ultimate reality TV star”, and “the most hated woman” in Britain were all labels attached to Goody at some point during her time in the spotlight, printed on the front of newspapers and muttered in pubs.
When Jade Goody died of cervical cancer in February 2009, the nation was forced to reflect on its treatment of her. Even now, a near-unanimous sense of guilt is attached to her name.
It's this guilt — and for some, a lingering fondness — that keeps Brits so interested in Jade Goody’s story, over 20 years on from when she was first introduced to the world through reality TV show Big Brother.
She left behind two sons, Bobby Brazier and Freddy Brazier, who were five and four when she died. Freddy has been in the headlines this week due to reports that he has become homeless. He is also expecting his first child with partner Holly Swinburn.
But in order to understand the tragedy of Goody and the context of her sons’ lives, we need to go back to 2002.
‘She came fourth, but she was the winner’
This is the opinion of Davina McCall, the original Big Brother presenter and broadcaster, who first met Goody when she entered the Big Brother house in 2002. The TV series was still in its relative infancy — the 2002 edition was its third series — and Goody’s appearance is part of what skyrocketed the show into the reality TV hall of fame.
From the moment 20-year-old dental nurse Goody was beamed into British homes via our TV sets, she was divisive. The general public found her to be unintelligent (she thought Cambridge was in London and that East Anglia was outside the UK), but entertaining: reality TV dynamite.
Goody left the house in the final, placing fourth, yet she remains the most famous of perhaps any Big Brother contestant — which is perhaps what McCall meant when called her the “winner”. McCall’s comments were part of a Channel 4 documentary on Goody’s life, The Jade Goody Story, released in 2019.
In the documentary, McCall reflected on Goody’s upbringing. Her father, Andrew Goody, was an absent drug addict and pimp who left the family when she was two, and her mother, Jackiey Budden, was a self-described “crack head” who once hit a young Jade for breaking her crack pipe.
“I remember Jade saying how she’s always looked after her mum, all her life,” McCall said in the 2019 documentary, her voice cracking, “and I would look at her and think, ‘God you’ve gone into this first foray into being yourself and escaping that past life of drugs and addiction, and then turning that around. I mean it was nothing short of fricking miraculous what she did in there.”
After leaving the Big Brother house, Goody became a name and a face, lending her personal stamp to products, fragrances and appearing frequently in women’s mags like Heat and OK! magazine.
Goody’s ‘terrible’ return to Big Brother in 2007 and the racism scandal
Goody returned to the Big Brother house five years later as part of the 2007 Celebrity Big Brother cohort. Sure of her and her family’s pull, producers didn’t just put Goody in the house: they also included her mother, and her boyfriend Jack Tweed.
But things went south quickly when Goody, Budden and Tweed were accused of racism and bullying directed at a fellow contestant, the Indian actress Shilpa Shetty. It was claimed the comments included calling Shetty “Shilpa Fuckawalla” and “Shilpa Poppadom”, as well as a veiled reference to the P word.
Goody left the TV show, and the group’s remarks led to an investigation by Hertfordshire Police. Her much-publicised return to the Big Brother house was branded “a terrible decision” by her publicist Max Clifford. “It looks like she has ruined a very lucrative career,” he said at the time.
In a video posted to the BBC News website that year, Goody admitted, “I know that things that I don't think are necessarily racist... could be... And I am sincerely sorry for the pain and hurt I've caused to Shilpa's family. I am wrong... I am wrong, and I know that my words and my actions were wrong, and I'm not trying to justify that in any way. I am wrong, and the people who have complained are not wrong. They're just insulted by me and I completely take that criticism.”
A third attempt at Big Brother is interrupted by her cancer diagnosis
In August 2008, Goody attempted to renew her fame by appearing on the Indian version of Big Brother, Bigg Boss 2. Two days into filming, she was diagnosed with cervical cancer and immediately flew home. The scenes of her learning her diagnosis were not broadcast in India but were filmed, and the moment was eventually made public via her 2019 Channel 4 documentary.
Before her diagnosis, Goody had already faced several cancer scares, including a cervical smear test that had discovered abnormal cells in 2002, a year ahead of her first appearance on Big Brother.
In September 2008, it was revealed that Goody’s cancer was advanced and life-threatening. She underwent chemotherapy and radiotherapy, lost her hair, and started planning her funeral. Despite her condition worsening, she told Irish broadcaster RTÉ that she had decided not to explain her cancer battle to her children, Bobby and Freddy Brazier, who were four and five at the time.
By February 2009, Goody’s cancer was classed as terminal. She wed her boyfriend Jack Tweed in a last-minute ceremony on the banks of the River Thames, followed by a bigger celebration at Down Hall country house. Goody died just over one month later in her sleep, aged 27. She was buried in her wedding dress, and her sons did not attend the funeral due to the media attention and television crews outside the venue.
What are Bobby Brazier and Freddy Brazier doing now?
After Goody died, Bobby and Freddy Brazier were raised in Harlow, in Essex, by their father Jeff Brazier (he dated Goody for two years from 2002 to 2004) and his partner Kate Dwyer. Bobby attended private school in London for his primary years but struggled to fit in due to his ADHD. When the family moved to Brighton, both Bobby and Freddy were enrolled in local state schools instead.
After school, Bobby Brazier worked as a social media apprentice and got into modelling, making his Milan Fashion Week debut in 2020. He has since become an actor, appearing as Freddie Slater in EastEnders, a role which earned him a National Television Award. His appearance in the 2024 British crime drama Curfew also won him a National Film Award. Earlier this year, the 22-year-old actor became a follower of the Hare Krishna faith and took a trip to India to learn its teachings.
Freddy Brazier has had a tougher time. The 21-year-old has admitted to struggling with drug addiction since he was 12 and was previously sectioned following a series of manic episodes.
Speaking on his podcast Load Of Old Cobblers, he said: “I've been smoking since I was 12, I've been to rehab, I've been sectioned, I've had manic episodes, I've been sectioned. There's been a real journey and it's been a tough one.”
Freddy is currently expecting his first child with partner Holly Swinburn. However, he has confessed he is currently homeless, telling Closer: “I'm not living anywhere exactly. It's a bit of a complicated one. I'm just staying with my friends, couch surfing and loving life. I love a sofa and an air bed.”
Speaking on his impending fatherhood, he shared: “I always knew I was going to be a young dad. It was always going to come at some point. I've been silly in the past. I'm surprised it didn't come earlier, but I'm happy.”
If the baby is a girl, he hopes to name her Jade.
