British Reality Star Dies After Cancer Battle

LONDON – British reality TV star Jade Goody died in the early hours of Sunday morning from cancer, her spokesman Max Clifford confirmed.

The terminally ill 27-years-old died at her home in Upshire, Essex, at 0314 GMT on Mother's Day with mother Jackiey Budden, husband Jack Tweed and other family members at her side.

Ms. Budden asked that the family be left to grieve in private.

"My beautiful daughter is at peace," she was quoted as saying by the BBC.

Goody was diagnosed with cervical cancer last August while taking part in the Indian version of the U.K. reality show Big Brother.

After receiving the news in February that her cancer had become terminal, she made it a priority to secure the future of her two sons – Bobby, five, and Freddie, four – through media interviews and by selling the rights to her wedding to Tweed last month to OK! Magazine. The wedding was also filmed for her reality TV series.

After her diagnosis, Goody spoke of her desire to tell her sons about Jesus before she died and that she wanted them to know she would be looking down on them from Heaven.

Last month she was christened with her sons in a short ceremony at the Royal Marsden Hospital in Chelsea, where she was being treated.

Paying tribute to her this morning, Clifford described Goody as "a very, very brave girl."

"She faced her death in the way she faced her whole life – full on, with a lot of courage," he said.