British reality television star Jade Goody died in her sleep early yesterday aged just 27, her publicist said, after a very public battle with cervical cancer.
Goody died at her home in Upshire, Essex, southeast England, at 3:14am on Britain’s Mother’s Day, with husband Jack Tweed and mother Jackiey Budden by her side.
“I think she’s going to be remembered as a young girl who has, and who will, save an awful lot of lives,” her publicist Max Clifford said, referring to how her battle with cancer has raised awareness of the disease.
“She was a very, very brave girl. And she faced her death in the way she faced her whole life — full on, with a lot of courage.”
Goody, an ex-dental nurse from south London, first
found fame on Britain’s Big Brother reality television program in 2002.
But her career was nearly ruined when she subjected Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty to racist bullying on the celebrity edition of the show in 2007, referring to her as “Shilpa Poppadom.”
The two subsequently made peace, with Goody appearing on the Indian Big Brother — Bigg Boss — although she pulled out after being told she had cancer.
Shetty has said she was “sad” about Goody’s illness and had hoped to visit her last week while on a trip to Britain.
Goody’s decision to live out her final weeks in the public eye prompted many commentators uncomfortable with the coverage to raise questions about the ethics of reality television.
But she won the hearts of many Britons — and was responsible for a huge jump in the number of young women taking tests for cervical cancer.
Goody married Tweed — a 21-year-old aspiring footballers’ agent who was jailed last year for attacking a teenager with a golf club — on Feb. 22, nine days after he proposed in hospital following her terminal diagnosis.
Media rights for the lavish ceremony at a country house hotel north of London were reportedly sold for US$1.4 million.
Goody plus sons Bobby, five, and Freddy, four — who she had with her ex-boyfriend, television presenter Jeff Brazier — were christened on March 7, another event captured by a magazine.
Goody often said she was seeking publicity not for herself, but as a way to secure her
sons’ financial future when she was gone.
Her case reportedly led to a 20 percent rise in the number of young women taking smear tests which can detect cervical cancer.
US actor Harrison Ford is engaged to be married to longtime girlfriend Calista Flockhart, People magazine reported on Saturday.
It quoted sources close to the couple as saying Ford, 66, surprised girlfriend Flockhart, 44, with an engagement ring during the Valentine’s Day weekend while they were away on a family vacation with son Liam.
The couple has been together for 7 1/2 years.
No wedding date has yet been set, the magazine said.
Agents for South Korean star singer and actor Rain said on Friday they are consulting their lawyers after a US court ordered them to pay more than US$8 million for canceling a concert in Honolulu in 2007.
“This is a result we would never have expected,” Jung Wook, president of JYP Entertainment, told Yonhap news agency.
“We will decide our future course of legal action in a few days after discussing it with attorneys who are on their way back (to Seoul).”
On Thursday a Honolulu federal jury found Rain and his agency had breached a contract with Click Entertainment to perform a concert almost two years ago. It ordered them to pay the Hawaiian promoter punitive damages and compensation.
Rain’s concert was cancelled a few days before its scheduled date of June 15, 2007 at Aloha Stadium, the first stop on his US tour. The tickets cost a maximum of US$300 each.
Click Entertainment said the cancellation cost it more than US$1.5 million and its business reputation was damaged.
Rain argued that the concert stage was not properly set up for him.
That US assistance was a model for Taiwan’s spectacular development success was early recognized by policymakers and analysts. In a report to the US Congress for the fiscal year 1962, former President John F. Kennedy noted Taiwan’s “rapid economic growth,” was “producing a substantial net gain in living.” Kennedy had a stake in Taiwan’s achievements and the US’ official development assistance (ODA) in general: In September 1961, his entreaty to make the 1960s a “decade of development,” and an accompanying proposal for dedicated legislation to this end, had been formalized by congressional passage of the Foreign Assistance Act. Two
March 31 to April 6 On May 13, 1950, National Taiwan University Hospital otolaryngologist Su You-peng (蘇友鵬) was summoned to the director’s office. He thought someone had complained about him practicing the violin at night, but when he entered the room, he knew something was terribly wrong. He saw several burly men who appeared to be government secret agents, and three other resident doctors: internist Hsu Chiang (許強), dermatologist Hu Pao-chen (胡寶珍) and ophthalmologist Hu Hsin-lin (胡鑫麟). They were handcuffed, herded onto two jeeps and taken to the Secrecy Bureau (保密局) for questioning. Su was still in his doctor’s robes at
Last week the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said that the budget cuts voted for by the China-aligned parties in the legislature, are intended to force the DPP to hike electricity rates. The public would then blame it for the rate hike. It’s fairly clear that the first part of that is correct. Slashing the budget of state-run Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) is a move intended to cause discontent with the DPP when electricity rates go up. Taipower’s debt, NT$422.9 billion (US$12.78 billion), is one of the numerous permanent crises created by the nation’s construction-industrial state and the developmentalist mentality it
Experts say that the devastating earthquake in Myanmar on Friday was likely the strongest to hit the country in decades, with disaster modeling suggesting thousands could be dead. Automatic assessments from the US Geological Survey (USGS) said the shallow 7.7-magnitude quake northwest of the central Myanmar city of Sagaing triggered a red alert for shaking-related fatalities and economic losses. “High casualties and extensive damage are probable and the disaster is likely widespread,” it said, locating the epicentre near the central Myanmar city of Mandalay, home to more than a million people. Myanmar’s ruling junta said on Saturday morning that the number killed had
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