Jade Goody's heartbreaking way she told sons Freddy and Bobby that she was dying
Jade Goody heartbreakingly passed away from cervical cancer 16 years ago today on Mother's Day 2009 and spent her final days providing for her beloved boys.
Jade Goody passed away 16 years ago today on Mother's Day 2009 after her battle with cervical cancer.
The devoted mum-of-two, who left behind her sons Bobby and Freddy, was just 27-years-old when she heartbreakingly passed away on March 22 2009.
The anniversary of her death comes amid an ongoing feud between the father of Jade's children, Jeff Brazier, and the late reality star's mother, Jackiey Budden.
Jeff, who has raised Bobby, 21, and Freddy, 20, on his own, recently launched a legal bid to stop his youngest son from seeing his maternal grandmother.
The objective is to protect Freddy from "a relationship that has been incredibly detrimental to his wellbeing" according to Jeff who has citied concerns about his son's emotional and psychological safety.
Freddy, recently opened up about his mental health in a Tiktok video, where he explained he is bipolar and was also previously diagnosed with ADHD.
His grandmother, Jackiey is known to have had past struggles with drug addiction and has admitted in the past that Jade did not enjoy a normal childhood, shockingly confessing that the late reality star had been rolling cannabis joints for her since she was just five-years-old.
After her rough childhood, Jade sadly suffered more heartbreak later into her life when she found out about her illness.
Jade discovered during her time on the Indian version of Big Brother in 2008 that she had cancer after receiving a personal phone call from her consultant.
The late reality star, who had previously experienced symptoms such as blood loss and pains in her leg, returned to the UK straight away and learned that she had had cancer for the past two years with a tangerine-sized tumour having destroyed more than half of her womb.
Jade underwent a hysterectomy and a tough year of chemotherapy, but was quickly informed that her cancer had already spread and there was nothing more they could do.
In her final days, Jade made sure that her beloved sons, Bobby and Freddy, would be cared for after she was gone.
During a tear-jerking interview with Philip Schofield on This Morning, she said: "I just want to carry on being to the boys and to myself normal and I'm quite naive with the whole cancer thingy.
"I haven't done any research or anything and I don't want to know. I only know what I need to know, which is this is my medication and this is that, this is when I get better.
"I don't want to know the ins and outs and because it's too much for my brain to take it in. It really is."
Jade was determined to make as much money as possible for her two young sons and worked right up until she physically couldn't, securing TV interviews, pictures and her own reality show.
She also asked doctors to not reveal to her how serious the prognosis really was before received the worst news possible on Valentine's Day in 2009.
The doctors were forced to tell Jade she was dying after the cancer had spread to her liver, bowel and groin. Previously revealing how she felt at the time, the late mum said: "I couldn't breathe when they told me. I just screamed and cried and said, 'can't anyone do anything to help me'," she revealed at the time.
"A few weeks ago when they first told me the chemo hadn't worked they said it didn't have to be the end. I know they've done everything they can to help me and I'm grateful. But I really thought I might be OK."
Jade was left with the heartbreaking decision of working out how she would break the news to her boys after decicing they needed to hear the truth from her.
She and Jeff Brazier, who she dated for two years between 2002 and 2004 and had her two sons with, co-wrote a script about how she would become a star in the sky who they would always be able to see.
Jade gently delivered the speech to her boys alone in her hospital bed while Jeff waited in a side room to comfort their sons and make sure they understood.
Jeff told Mail on Sunday's You magazine: "She didn't want to tell them, but she knew she had to do it because she wanted them to know the truth. The thought of that always reduces me to tears. Our poor boys, Poor Jade."
When her condition deteriorated, she and her boys were christened at the chapel in the hospital.
At that point, Jade was hooked up to a drip in her hospital gown and was only able to stay awake for just a matter of minutes.
In her final days, she returned to her Essex home, where her husband Jack Tweedy, slept on the floor by her bed as she drifted in and out of consciousness.
Recalling her final days, Jack, who was married to Jade for just one month before her death, said his late wife would sometimes wake up and think she was nursing a baby and call her mum Jackiey in.
Jack said: "She'd tell me to be quiet so I didn't wake the baby. I used to go along with it and pretend to take the baby and call Jackiey in and pretend to give the baby to her.
"I'd then ask Jade whether she was OK and she'd say: 'Yes that's fine, now I can sleep.'"
In her final days, Jade barely had the strength to stay awake, never mind move around but her devotion to her son's was still strong.
Just 48 hours before she passed away, Jade was drifting in and out of consciousness when she heard her son Bobby, then five, crying in his sleep.
With an incredible strength of will, and against the advice of her doctors, Jade managed to haul herself out of bed to go to her son.
She bravely put Bobby on her back and climbed the stairs with him, with close friend Kevin Adams telling The Sun: "She wasn't eating and the doctor said her health was deteriorating rapidly.
"But that night Jade got up, walked upstairs and pulled [Bobby] up onto her back and brought him to her hospital bed.
"The next day I told the doctor what had happened and she said, 'no Jade doesn't have the strength to do that because everything in her body is failing'.
"I told her that I saw it with my own eyes. She was able to do it because those kids meant everything to her. That memory will live with me forever, it is so special to me."
Jade passed away in her sleep in the early hours of March 22, but her incredible legacy has lived on with the number of women having smear tests increasing by 12 per cent following her death.
With Mother's Day coming up this weekend, Jeff has previously spoken about how his boys struggle through the day.
Speaking on his podcast Only Human back in 2021, Jeff explained that he feels a sense of responsibility for helping the two navigate their grief on a day like Mother's Day.
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He said: "Talking about the subject has made me feel emotional. I've got two boys that are really going to be missing their mum today. They miss her every day.
"My vulnerability in this moment right now is that I, as a parent of two kids that lost their mum, I have got the responsibility on my shoulders of guiding them through the day.
"But then I remind myself that it's not on me, it's not on anyone really, it just is what it is."