Remembering
Big Brother star
Jade Goody, who
died 10 years ago
NEW PROFILE
Jade: The Reality Star
Who Changed Britain
Wednesday, C4 HD, 9pm
With her mother,
Jackiey BuddenThe mum-of-two
was diagnosed with
cancer in 2008Animal Park
Monday-Friday, BBC1 HD, 9.15amAs the safari-park series returns,
Longleat is buzzing with activity
because the keepers are expecting
the arrival of five Southern koalas
that have been flown over from
Australia as part of a conservation
programme. The newcomers from
Down Under will be the first of
their species to arrive in Europe.DID YOU KNOW?
Call the Midwife creator Heidi Thomas
wrote the series to honour the nurses
who treated her after she nearly died
from sepsis. Find out more about the
writer in The South Bank Show
(Tuesday, Sky Arts HD, 10pm).denying it. I have moments of very
deep anxiety you can’t describe.
When you see Marieme laughing,
playing and smiling, it makes
things harder. They’re both
full of life at this point.’
BBC2’s documentary The
Conjoined Twins: An Impossible
Decision follows Ibrahima as he
travels from his home in Cardiff to
Great Ormond Street Hospital in
London to discuss the heartbreaking
decision with the team there.
Ibrahima first brought the girls
to the UK when they were just
seven months old, while his wife
remained in Senegal to care for
their other children.
Since then, the twins – who have
separate lungs and hearts, but are
joined from the waist down – have
been receiving treatment to help
prolong their lives.
But now the situation has
become critical. The condition of
Marieme’s heart is deteriorating,
meaning that the decision as to
whether the twins should be
separated must be made quickly.
If Marieme becomes too ill, then
Ndeye won’t be strong enough
to survive the surgery either.‘It’s just highs
and lows,’ says
Ibrahima. ‘Every
single day you’re
witnessing this
battle, this fight
the girls are
having against
their condition
and for life.
‘It’s quite scary, the thought of
losing them. I can’t even imagine
what life would be without them.
At this point, the most important
thing is just to keep the standard
of happiness they have, right up
to the last second.’VERY COURAGEOUS
With time running out, Ibrahima
joins an emergency meeting of
Great Ormond Street’s Clinical
Ethics Committee to discuss what’s
in the twins’ best interest.
So far, the hospital has never
before separated conjoined twins
if the operation would knowingly
lead to the death of one of the
children, although there is a
legal precedent to do so.
Will the team agree it’s ethical to
operate if it will save Ndeye’s life?
And will Ibrahima agree to surgery
if it means Marieme will die?
‘My opinion is that if there’s
any risk of Marieme losing her life,
I’m not willing to do it,’ he says.
‘They’ve been very courageous,
and they still are. I don’t know how
long they will live for, but it’s not
over yet. You never know what
will happen tomorrow.’Back in the early 2000s, you
couldn’t open a newspaper or
magazine without seeing a story
about reality star Jade Goody.
The dental nurse from south-east
London had catapulted to fame on
2002’s Big Brother and the ups and
downs of her life made headline
news until her tragically early death
from cervical cancer in 2009, when
she was just 27 years old.
C4’s three-part series tells the story
of Jade’s extraordinary life and
features interviews with those closest
to her, including her mum Jackiey
Budden and ex-partner Jeff Brazier.RUNNING AWAY
‘She didn’t go into Big Brother for
fame,’ reveals Budden. ‘She went
in to get away from me. We were
a twisted-up, mucked-up family.
I was a crackhead. She worked
and worked and gave me money
and it all went on gear.’
During the first few weeks of
Big Brother, the tabloid press hated
Goody, calling her a pig, a drunkand a chav. But
the nation soon
saw her raw
vulnerability
and took her to their hearts.
‘It was the public that told the
papers, “You’d better start being
nice to this girl because we love
her”,’ says former Big Brother host
Davina McCall, who also features
in the series. ‘She’d gone into this
first foray of being herself and
escaping that past life of drugs
and addiction. She came fourth,
but she was the winner.’
After leaving the Big Brother
house, the money rolled in for
Goody and she was able to splash
out on holidays, cars and houses.
She also fell in love with Brazier
and went on to have two sons,
Bobby and Freddie, with him.
But sadly, her happiness didn’t
last. She and Brazier separated, she
was accused of racially bullying
Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty
on 2007’s Celebrity Big Brother
and she was diagnosed with
cervical cancer in August 2008.
‘All I could see was quality in
her, but she couldn’t see it’, recalls
Brazier. ‘She wasn’t really that good
at knowing how special she was.’Life through
a lens
London’s
Great Ormond
Street Hospital
J a d e r o s e t o fa m e
as a reality star