Thousands Come Out For Jade Goody’s Funeral
Thousands of fans and well-wishers turned out to bid farewell to reality TV star Jade Goody on Saturday.
The one-time dental assistant, who died of cervical cancer on March 22 at age 27, found controversy, fame and fortune as a contestant on the popular reality television show “Big Brother.”
Goody rode the highs and lows of celebrity, dividing opinion between those inspired by her rise from a tough childhood and those that cringed at her crude language and eye-popping gaffes.
The mother of two’s decision to battle cancer in the public gaze was also fiercely debated. She married her fiance Jack Tweed in a media extravaganza shortly before her passing.
Hundreds of people lined the streets of Bermondsey, south London, where Goody was raised and threw flowers and applauded as the hearse carrying her coffin passed by.
About 2,000 more people gathered outside St. John’s church in Buckhurst Hill, just north of London, to watch the funeral service relayed on a giant screen outside.
Her husband, Jack Tweed was one of six pallbearers carrying the white coffin into St John’s Church in Buckhurst Hill, Essex, soon after it arrived at noon.
Outside, well wishers watched and listened as Tweed, 21, faltering at times, read a poem in dedication to his late wife.
“My life will never be the same without you by my side,” he recited. “Grief almost too much to bear and difficult to hide.”
Inside the church, Max Clifford, Goody’s publicist, paid tribute to the star.
He described her as “someone who wanted to be a star and someone by purely being herself became a star, someone who has achieved an awful lot in a short space of time, someone who today the whole world is watching.”
Media reported that Goody’s two sons are on holiday in Australia with their father Jeff Brazier at her request. She married Jack Tweed in February.
After the funeral Goody was to be buried at a family ceremony.
