It's all over the news, unfortunately. She lives about 3 or 4 miles from me, and her boyfriend's parents live just up the road, so there's been media round the area all this week. Before all this happened, I would see her from time to time shopping in Loughton, where she co-owns a beauty salon. She'd always talk to anyone who wanted to chat to her.

I feel very sad for her, as I would for anyone in her circumstances, but I also understand her wish to make as much money as she can for her sons' future. She came from a very deprived background with no social advantages, skills or graces, and she wants, as any mother would, the best she can provide for her sons. She was quoted in the press this week (and I paraphrase) that she became famous (and then infamous) because of her ignorance, and if she can use the commodity of celebrity to give her sons the best education money can buy, then she will do so, because she's going to die anyway, so she might as well die having made a ton of money for her boys.

It's a big story, and I've found it upsetting. That's unusual for me - I usually couldn't care less about dying celebrities.

Sections of the media are trying to turn the story into a class thing by implying that the middle classes are dismissive of her plight because of her obviously underclass roots, but I don't see that. People understand that she's desperately selling her story all over the red tops to provide a cash buffer for her kids, and for the most everyone feels sorry for her.

And her kids. This is the sorriest part of the story. She's gonna leave two young children. My heart goes out to them.

I know, those little boys! I keep thinking of that -- two young children are about to lose their mother, which is heartbreaking enough, but to have to go through it in public... god, I can't imagine the extra pain and difficulty that will put on them -- not just immediately, but over the course of years in grieving her death.

But yet, the catch-22 is that I totally sympathize with her desire to nail down their financial futures once and for all, once she's gone. (Though it raises the question -- and I honestly don't mean this to sound as churlish as it might -- but does this mean that she didn't wind up earning much over the past several years of fame/notoreity in the first place?)

Jade has, I think, been on the cover of the tabloids (Sun, Mirror) every day this week. It is a pretty major story- she's very famous over here.

I am really fascinated by Jade. I moved here in early 2004, not long after she became famous for her appearance on Big Brother and become aware of the love-her-or-hate-her mentality early on. On the one had, some people seem charmed with her utterly down-to-earth nature and on the other hand, she represents for many people an unsavory side of Britain that they would rather not face - uneducated, brash and not embarassed about it. I was astounded at the level of bile that was poured on her over the whole Shilpa Shetty incident. I saw that episode of BB and though the behavior of some other contestants was just as bad if not worse than Jade's and their (early) lack of remorse was in direct contrast to Jade's grovelling apologies and repeated assertions that there was no excuse whatsoever for what she did. I think unfortunately Jade has become the public whipping boy for many people's class frustrations. There was an article in The Times today or yesterday that touches on this.

I've never really followed Jade other than as observer from the sidelines but I find the fact that she is actually dying of cancer unbelievable. To be so young and with two young boys, it's just so shocking and sad. I believe that she had signed to be on this reality show (it seems she's always on one reality show or another) before she learned she had cancer and now they're just following her through this as they would have followed her life anyway. Her publicist has said that her death will not be filmed.

I don't think she's made millions. She didn't earn a lot from Big Brother. After that she opened a beauty salon in Hertfordshire called, I think, Uglys, with a tie-in reality show. The salon went bankrupt.

There were a couple of reality shows, one about finding her a PA, and then there was the disastrous Celeb Big Brother where she lost just about every ounce of public sympathy overnight with her outburst against Shilpa Shetty. As triggerfinger said, she was by no means the only guilty party in that episode.

It was a hard climb back for her after that. She'd bought this big house in Upshire, with, I suspect, a hefty mortgage, and she lost a lot of income overnight after the Shetty incident. Her perfume, which had just launched, was withdrawn, and a TV series was cancelled.

So I'd be surprised if she had all that much money in the bank. She needs to make a lot now because 40% of what she earns will be taken in Inheritance Tax once she dies. I hope there are some good trust/tax lawyers doing their best to keep as much of it as possible away from the Revenue.

Thanks, Jan, that's really interesting -- and also further saddens me, when I think of the media conglomerates that no doubt earned so much money off her, yet she ends up with so little.

And thanks, too, triggerfinger, for that excellent Times article.

I guess most of the time the people given a huge hunk of money who were raised in instant gratification mode won't be informed (or listen to those who try to let them know) about saving/investing a part of it wisely.

Brujita - Jade has never really done anything that would have earned her hunks of money or anything resembling them. Certainly she earns zip from most of the tabloid paper and glossy magazine stories, and none of the reality shows she's been on have exactly been big budget.

There's no salary attached to being famous. You have to actually find stuff to do that earns a paycheck, and Jade mostly hasn't.

Wikipedia reckons that by the time Jade entered CBB, she was worth anywhere from £2m - £8m (source Daily Mail).

(source Daily Mail).

In America, isn't this a bit like saying (source National Enquirer)?

Especially as the figure comes from a dodgy aspirational article from the "femail" section about how rich she's meant to be, and could mean absolutely anything. It's the kind of statistic where they'd include the value of her house but ignore the mortgage on it, for example. I wouldn't take it as a good indicator of how much actually-hers wealth she has to pass on to her kids.

Also she's being hounded by a tiny helicopter:
≡ Click to see image ≡