British TV reality star Jade Goody died of cervical cancer in her sleep at home at Essex early Sunday.

The 27-year-old mother of two, who married her boyfriend in a televised ceremony only last month, died in her sleep at her home in Essex, southeast England, her publicist Max Clifford said.

She had been treated at the Royal Marsden Hospital in west London but wanted “to spend all the time she had got left” with new husband Jack Tweed and sons, Bobby, five, and Freddy, four.Goody was diagnosed with the disease in 2008 but it spread to her liver, groin and bowel and she was told it was terminal in February.

Her mother Jackiey Budden said: “My beautiful daughter is at peace.”

By endlessly poring over every detail of Goody’s losing battle with the disease, newspapers, gossip magazines and broadcasters have been accused of being obsessed with someone who is famous for little more than being famous.

Jade Goody shot to fame in 2002 after appearing in Big Brother, a reality show in which people are locked in a house and their every move televised and was taking part in a version of the show in India when she was told of her illness.

Initially ridiculed for her apparent lack of education, she gradually won over the public with her straight-talking style.

She went on to become a regular in gossip magazines, wrote an autobiography and launched her own perfume, but her popularity sank in 2007 because of her racially charged tirades against an Indian housemate in Celebrity Big Brother.

Goody’s decision to die in the public gaze, in order to earn as much money as possible for her two young sons and publicize awareness of cervical cancer, largely restored her popularity.

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