Jade Goody fans left feeling 'sad' as Channel 4 airs CBB racism row in new documentary
Jade Goody fans were feeling “uncomfortable” while watching the latest instalment of Channel 4’s documentary series Jade: The Reality Star Who Changed Britain as it aired scenes from her infamous Celebrity Big Brother spat with Shilpa Shetty in 2007.
The second episode of the three-part series showed clips of Goody, S Club 7 singer Jo O’Meara and glamour model Danielle Lloyd “forming a gang” against the Bollywood actor.
At the time, the trio were accused of racism; allegations that were escalated when Goody was caught on camera ridiculing Shetty for bleaching her facial hair and calling her “Shilpa Poppadom.”
Read more: Jack Tweed on the 'horrible' moment he discovered Jade was dying
“There was mimicking of accents,” Big Brother creative director Phil Edgar-Jones recalled. “There’s a kind of low-level racism, I suppose you’d call it at that point.
“It wasn’t good. We started to get complaints.”
Viewers shared their thoughts on Twitter on Wednesday, 14 August defending Goody and criticising Channel 4 for handling the situation “really badly” at the time.
“This is an uncomfortable watch a second time round. I’m not convinced she was ever racist, uneducated an ill informed & used by the media. Reality TV has got a lot to answer for,” one Twitter user wrote.
Another added: “Watching the #JadeGoody story is so sad and how different things were in 2007 it was so uncomfortable to watch again and handled really badly by channel 4 at the time. It’s such a sad story if only she was here today.’
“Just cried watching the second episode of #jadegoody documentary the way she was slaughtered via the media and the public was just awful to try and push a person to the edge,” a third tweeted.
“She was just a young uneducated girl who didn't realise the impact of the words she used.”
“People will disagree but I still don’t think Jade was racist,” said a fourth. “Uneducated and ignorant yes and from a completely different background. Not that it was excusable but at the end of the day, she was a vulnerable woman in a new style media storm.”
I think the directors of BB threw her under a bus. So Hard to watch.
She shouldn't of said what she did, she had two others goading her who got off very lightly with their bullying. The media can be a deadly menace who are also equally unanswerable #JadeGoody— McCormicksGogglebox (@McCormicksGogg1) August 14, 2019
Jade: The Reality Star Who Changed Britain - which tracks Goody’s troubled childhood, rise to fame and ultimate downfall before passing away from cervical cancer in 2009 - concludes next week.