Goody quits India TV show after cancer diagnosis
MUMBAI (AFP) - TV personality Jade Goody has pulled out of India’s “Bigg Boss” show after being diagnosed with cancer, the channel broadcasting the programme and her publicist said Tuesday.
Goody apparently broke down in front of her fellow contestants on the show — the Indian version of “Celebrity Big Brother” — after learning of her test results, which her publicist said revealed she has cervical cancer.
“Jade’s stay at the Bigg Boss house has been cut short,” the Colors channel said in a statement.
Goody’s appearance on the show came 18 months after she was accused of racism on British TV’s “Celebrity Big Brother” due to her taunting of Bollywood actress and fellow contestant Shilpa Shetty.
Shetty is the host of the Bigg Boss show, which began Sunday.
The Colors channel said Goody, 27, had been “looking forward to reaching out to millions of Indians, to try and dispel various perceptions that exist in people’s minds about her.”
Goody was seen learning to dance to Bollywood songs in the first episode of the show televised on Monday — with strong viewer ratings reported — but abruptly flew out of Mumbai to return home for treatment.
Goody’s publicist Max Clifford told BBC radio she was “extremely upset and frightened.”
“Jade had some tests recently, then she went off to India to appear in the Indian Big Brother. Yesterday we got a call from her consultant to say she had cancer of the cervix and so she has to come back straight away,” he said.
Asked if the result was a positive smear test or a confirmed diagnosis of cancer, Clifford said: “No, it is cancer.”
“Jade is absolutely devastated. She was in floods of tears and broke down in front of her house mates,” Clifford was quoted as saying by Scottish newspaper the Daily Record.
Shetty said in the Colors statement: “It is unbelievable, how life is so unpredictable and finds a way to distract and derail you from your plans. My prayers are with Jade. I pray she comes out of this, soon and, stronger.”
Goody, a former dental nurse, was evicted from the British show by an audience vote and came in for tough criticism over her conduct on the series. Shetty ultimately won the show.
In an interview with a British magazine before travelling to India, Goody spoke of her worries about her two boys if her cancer was confirmed.
“I will worry for my beautiful boys if I get unwell. I live for them,” she told Reveal magazine. “I have to keep working to support my family. It’s not an option to stop.
“I know it sounds crazy, and a lot of people will criticise me for it, but I have to pay the bills at the end of the day.
“And if I do face cancer, I need to make sure I can support the boys,” she added.
The TV star was alone in her Essex home when she passed out two weeks ago after collapsing four times in recent months.
She said: “This time it was awful… I started getting really bad pain — like contraction pains.
“I went up to the bathroom and that’s when I saw the bleeding and clotting.”
She said she called an ambulance and they gave her morphine for the pain.
Doctors found abnormal cells in Goody’s cervix.
“I have had two cancer scares before but this time they said, ‘Jade there is a strong chance,’” Goody said.
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