Jeff Brazier: I see Jade Goody in our two sons

11 April 2012
The Weekender

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Jade Goody's former partner Jeff Brazier says he sees her in their two sons, a year on from her death.

Goody's family have filmed a loving TV tribute to her, marking the anniversary of her death following her high-profile battle with cervical cancer.


Parents: Jade Goody with former partner Jeff Brazier

The star, who shot to fame as a Big Brother hopeful, died at her home in Upshire, Essex, on Mother's Day 2009.

Speaking about their children Bobby, six, and Freddie, five, TV presenter Brazier said: "When Bobby rolls his eyes, when Bobby's moody, when Bobby's just waking up he looks very much like mum.

"It'd be impossible to not see Jade in them because she was a big character.

"And there's no way that a big character like her would not have left little traits to remind me that she was around in Bobby and Freddie."

Brazier explained how he had the idea that the children could send their thoughts to Goody in a bottle. The three held their own ceremony on a beach.

He said: "I knew what I wanted to do. At the same time as the funeral I had the idea of sending some pictures and letters from the boys in a bottle up to, up to Mummy in heaven basically.

"The way we was going to do that was by throwing it in the sea and I told the boys that the sea would take it up, take it up there for them.

"They just trusted in what I said and they were happy that this bottle, even though there was no lid on it or anything, that it was going to go and reach its destination. So it brought them a lot of comfort."

Goody's mother, Jackiey Budden, told how her daughter styled her hair for her for the funeral service.
She told the programme, which airs this Sunday on Living: "She was getting tired and, you know, 'cos of her chemo and that and her medication, we'd laughed all the way through it and a lot of energy had been taken out of Jade.

"But bless her she struggles and she done it for me.

"That was the last haircut I had for when I buried her ... yeah she cut my hair for her funeral making sure that I looked nice."

In previously unseen footage filmed during the last weeks of her life, the star's widower, Jack Tweed, said: "You could see in her eyes how scared she was and I just, I just don't know what to say to her."

Goody's friend and publicist Max Clifford told how in the last three or four months of Goody's life he was participating in up to 40 interviews a day with journalists from all over the world.

He said: "In all the years that I've been doing what I'm doing and working with some of the most famous people in the world, since the early 60s I've never ever known anything like it."
Jade: A Year Without Her airs on Sunday March 21 at 9pm on Living.

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