Jade

Is it me or does anyone else feel the same distaste for the sensationalism that has surrounded this poor woman ever since she first burst onto our screens…?

I never watched the Big Brother series in which Jade Goody first came into the public eye but I remember how the Press vilified her. As I recall they likened her facial features to those of a pig and took the mickey mercilessly. I felt extremely sorry for her.

I also did not view the Celebrity Big Brother series in which Jade Goody became embroiled in some sort of racial name-calling scandal with a Bollywood actress. If my memory serves me correctly, the Media were very disparaging and placed the blame for the incident solely at her door when the incessant coverage, on both radio and television, seemed to show that there was group culpability.

I paid no attention to her subsequent career, although I was aware of its lows and then further descent into mockery through violence and heartbreak because of the headlines for articles and pictures in various magazines at the hairdressers. I read now that, in some of those instances, she actively courted the publicity in order to capitalise on our new-found celebrity status, with a series of reality television shows and her own perfume. My impression at the time was that she had become a figure of fun to those in the Media establishment.

When I heard that she had cervical cancer, I felt as desperately sorry for her as I would for anyone in a similar situation with young children. But I couldn’t quite believe the publicity this news received. Top billing on the hour every hour on the radio for someone that had been ridiculed only weeks before..

Now that this unfortunate woman is facing death, the papers and magazines are falling over themselves to help her out with positive media interest. They are paying huge sums to feature her wedding (and, no doubt, her apparently imminent funeral).

The Press are known to be fickle. The British public suffer from Tall Poppy Syndrome. But everyone feels pity for someone cut down in their prime. Especially when there is money to be made from that sentiment.

The whole thing makes me feel sick to my stomach and I only hope that Miss Goody can take some pleasure, during what must be the most hideously public death, in extracting the maximum cash sum from this vile industry to give her children as protected a future as possible, although nothing will make up for her not being in it.

My thoughts go out to her and her family. Although I can’t help thinking that this makes me as hypocritical as the rest of them. After all, would I even care if she wasn’t dying?

It is Fifteen Minutes of Fame gone mad.