REALITY TV STAR JADE GOODY DIES

File photo dated Feb. 19 2009 of Jade Goody leaving her home in a wheelchair in Upshire, England. Jade Goody, a dental assistant turned reality-TV star whose whirlwind journey from poverty to celebrity to tragedy became a national soap opera and morality tale in Britain, has died.


The 27-year-old had cancer and died in her sleep early Sunday March 22 2009 at her home, her publicist Max Clifford said. Goody gained fame at 21 in 2002, when she joined the reality television show 'Big Brother,' in which contestants live together for weeks and are constantly filmed. Loud and brash, she became a highly divisive star — initially mocked as an ignorant slob, then celebrated as a forthright everywoman by a hungry tabloid press.