After spending most of her adult life in the glare of the media, British reality television star Jade Goody spent her last moments away from the cameras when she died from cancer Sunday aged just 27.

Goody shot to fame with her gaffes and naked antics on the "Big Brother" reality television programme in 2002, and earned international notoriety after taunting Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty on a celebrity edition of the show five years later.

But it was the young mother's fight with cancer -- detailed by the media from the moment she learned she had the disease, to her wedding soon after being told it was terminal -- that won the nation's heart.

The progress of her illness was captured on film and the tabloid newspapers splashed every new development, but while there were some questions about the ethics of such public pain, Goody won widespread support for her courage.

Even Prime Minister Gordon Brown said her plight was a "tragedy".

Goody defended selling media rights to her dying days as the best way to provide for Bobby and Freddy, her two sons aged five and four with former boyfriend Jeff Brazier.

"I want them to have the very best chance in life they can have. And that's what my money is for," she told the News of the World tabloid.

Since 2002, Goody had made a fortune from keep-fit DVDs, two autobiographies and a perfume line, and reportedly received one million pounds (1.1 million euros, 1.4 million dollars) for the rights to her wedding on February 22.

Goody married Jack Tweed, 21, after a nine-day engagement prompted by the news that her cervical cancer had spread to her liver, bowel and groin.

"I couldn't breathe when they told me. I screamed and cried and said: 'Can't anyone help me?'" she told News of the World.

"As soon as he (Jack) found out I was going to die, he just said, 'Right then, we're getting married'."

She described the lavish wedding -- complete with a dress from Harrods donated by the store's owner, Mohamed Al Fayed -- as the happiest day of her life, and it topped off a remarkable rags to riches story.

Born on June 5, 1981, Jade Cerisa Lorraine Goody grew up in Bermondsey, a deprived area of southeast London, with her lesbian mother Jackiey, her father Andrew having spent time in jail for robbery.

Her parents, both drug addicts, split when she was two. Her father died of a drug overdose in 2006.

She described herself as a dental nurse when she joined the 2002 series of "Big Brother", where she was became a national figure of fun for appearing naked, her mangling of the English language and her apparent stupidity.

Some of her utterings are etched in British television history -- at one point, she asked "Rio de Janeiro, ain't that a person?"

But she gradually won a loyal following and despite coming fourth on the show, became a firm fixture in the gossip pages.

She tarnished her image in 2007 however after she was accused of racism and bullying towards Indian actress Shetty when the pair appeared on "Celebrity Big Brother".

After calling her "Shilpa Poppadom", Goody sparked 45,000 complaints to Britain's television regulator and almost caused a diplomatic incident.

After suffering a miscarriage in 2007, Goody sought to tackle her critics head-on by appearing in an Indian version of the show, called "Bigg Boss", in August 2008.

But her time on the show was cut short when she was informed -- on television -- that tests had revealed she had cancer. She shared her tears with viewers before flying home for immediate treatment.

More heartbreak followed when Tweed was jailed for 18 months in September 2008 for attacking a 16-year-old boy with a golf club.
Longtime boyfriend Jack Tweed married Goody only weeks before her death.

In the end he was released early and although he was subject to a curfew, the Ministry of Justice took the extraordinary step of lifting it for their wedding day so they could spend the night together.

She was christened along with her children on March 7 in what her publicist Max Clifford called a "final good-bye" to friends and family.

Goody stayed in the public eye until the end, telling a tribute edition of OK! magazine: "I might even come back as a ghost, so I could always be there looking after my boys."

She revealed that she had planned an open funeral.

"She wants it to be a big celebration because it's her final farewell to everybody," Clifford said.

Source: http://www.zimbio.com/Jade+Goody/articles/374/Reality+Star+Jade+Goody+Loses+Battle+Cervical