Big Brother exec defends Jade Goody

The TV executive who first put Jade Goody on television, Big Brother producer Phil Edgar-Jones, says the reality TV star who finally lost her battle with cancer in the small hours of Sunday morning, enthralled and appalled the British public in equal measures.

Many viewers found her dreadful and somehow untamed, but others were able to relate to her raw honesty and "realness". He told Channel 4 News yesterday: "She proved that an ordinary person with no particular talent could connect with people."

No one quite like her had appeared on television before she entered the Big Brother house in 2002 - except in documentaries about troubled Britain. Yet "millions of people live Jade's life", said Edgar-Jones, and could relate to her.

The producer admitted feeling uncomfortable about Goody joining Celebrity Big Brother as a guest five years on when her verbal bullying of the Bollywood starlet Shilpa Shetty - whom she called "Shilpa Poppadom" - brought the entire series into disrepute. And he said that Goody, too, had been unsure about joining the programme, aware that Big Brother "had made her and now might destroy her".

Edgar-Jones said Goody was devastated when she came out of the house and discovered that her apparently racist treatment of the Indian actress had brought thousands of viewers' complaints and escalated into an international controversy. "I felt guilty for putting her in that position," he admitted.

However, he felt that there was some public benefit from the Goody-Shetty saga. "What happened was that issues of race, and the subtle language we use that undermines people on a racial level, got discussed in a way that was far greater than if you'd made a documentary."

Gordon Brown was still the Chancellor when he was dragged into the controversy during a trip he happened to be making to India in January 2007. After being asked repeatedly by Indians and by British journalists to comment, he said TV viewers were right to find Goody's comments offensive.

On Sunday, however, all that was history when Brown led the tributes to Goody within hours of her death. "She will be remembered fondly by all who knew her," he said, "and her family can be extremely proud of the work she has done to raise awareness of cervical cancer which will benefit thousands of women across the UK."

Shilpa Shetty told the BBC: "I am deeply saddened but I am glad Jade is out of pain and that she died peacefully with her family around her."