The Jade Goody phenomenon

How did a former dental nurse rise from obscurity to earn a £4m fortune as a 'celebrity'? Why has she become such a ubiquitous presence on british television screens? What does her success say about the cultural life of the nation?

The first time she was mentioned in the national press, Jade Goody was a "pretty dental nurse, 20, from London". It was 25 May 2002 and the car crash that was Big Brother 3 had only just begun.

By the end of the summer, Jade had been described as a nasty slapper, public enemy number one, the most hated woman in Britain and a monster. Big Brother message boards had received "burn the pig" death threats and Channel 4 bosses were urged to smuggle her out and rush her to a secret location abroad (maybe in "East Angular") for her own safety.

Four-and-a-half years later, Jade is, by her own account, "the most 25th inferlential [sic] person in the world". She is worth up to £4m; it is impossible to switch on a television without her featuring on some satellite channel somewhere; she is never out of the red-tops. She even has her own best-selling perfume.

So how did this remarkable transformation come about? And what does it say about all of us?

For when Jade walked back into the Big Brother house last Friday night it was, she was keen to point out, as a bona fide celebrity. Not that the other celebrities agreed. Within a day, Donny Tourette, the Sid Vicious-wannabe with unforeseen Spiderman tendencies, had scaled the wall of the Big Brother compound, declaring manfully: "I'm out of here. I'm not fucking waiting on some moron and her family."

Next to succumb was the film director Ken Russell. Not someone who has led a sheltered life, he branded her "demented" and realised that he had to get away. As he hurriedly packed his bags on Sunday, the director of The Devils and Revenge of the Elephant Man explained that he could not tolerate being in a quite large house with a small Essex girl and her enormous mouth. "I don't want to live in a society riddled with evil and hatred," he whispered. It was more than he had said all week in the house.

Last night, Ladbrokes had odds of 2 to 1 on another celebrity getting a bad case of Goody-itis and legging it out of the house. The Jade magic is working again, just like it did in 2002. But Jade should not be downhearted: she has learnt that being an "escape goat", as she so memorably described her position, is big business.

It started the day after she walked into the house first time around alongside contestants such as Adele, Kate and Alex - now long forgotten. After 24 hours of Jade, The People wrote an astonished attack, entitled: "Why we must lob the gob". The next day, Coral suspended betting on Jade being the first to be voted out after a flood of bets including one of £5,900.

Whatever they said about Jade, she was worse. The Daily Mail asked, "Are these the 12 most awful people in Britain?" So Jade celebrated her 21st birthday, declaring: "I'm going to make myself so drunk that I'll make myself sick, and then I'll start all over again." Dominik Diamond called her a "nasty slapper" with a face like a pig. She found herself in bed with her housemate, PJ, who denied their under-the-sheets fumble and ran from her, shrieking. For perhaps the first time in living memory, The Sun and The Mirror were in full agreement: this was the most hated woman in Britain. The Daily Star decided she was a "monster".

Then Jade threatened to "deck" Adele for pointing out that Jade had a verruca. It was rumoured that even Germaine Greer was struggling to find a sense of sisterhood and had muttered in the Newsnight green room that "the fat slag deserves all she gets". She was more unpopular than Saddam Hussein. Who was a boxer, according to Jade.

Such was the passion behind the new national sport that some grew wary. Big Brother's producers were warned by Dr Cynthia McVey, a leading psychologist and expert in reality TV show ethics, who announced her fears for Jade's safety and sanity. "My real worries are for Jade," she said. "Every bit of her character has been attacked. She has been called ugly, stupid and nasty."

Channel 4 insiders revealed that Jade had a long chat with the show's psychologist and been recommended for 24-hour protection the minute the show was over. Her mum begged programme-makers to smuggle her out via a back door, for fear that she would be lynched. Then Jade emerged in fourth place, in a pink satin dress two sizes too small, and all hell broke loose. Was she upset my all the criticism? Was she bollocks, she said.

Years later, Dr McVey is still certain that she was right to voice her concerns. "I have a theory that, after I'd said that, some people felt that they had gone too far, and they turned around and supported her," she said yesterday. "You'd expect her to be demoralised. But what happened may have enabled her future career."

Was she referring to The Mirror, which announced triumphantly that its anti-Jade campaign was "a brilliantly conceived clandestine campaign to drum up sympathy for the divine Ms Jade Goody"? Or The Sun, which decided to back her as a worthy winner? Whatever it was, Jade's fortunes took a turn for the better.

Dr McVey shrugs. "Maybe she was less sensitive than other people would have been. She may have thought that it was a fair trade off - the price of fame. Still, I am a little surprised that she agreed to go back into the house. The first time may have been a good move in the long term but it was not a pleasant experience in the short term. I'm surprised she didn't say to herself that it might not be the best move."

Whatever the short-term pain, you can forgive Jade for wanting some more of that long-term action. She is estimated to be worth between £2m and £4m. She owns three houses with giant plasma TV screens and chandeliers and a £60,000 turbo-charged Range Rover. Her autobiography, cunningly titled My Autobiography, has sold 113,000 copies, not bad for someone who admits that she can have trouble signing her own name. And her perfume, Shh... Jade Goody, is the third most popular in the country, after Kylie's and Victoria Beckham's.

Jade's agent, who also represents Davina McCall, Tess Daly, Mariella Frostrup and Sadie Frost is very shy about talking money. A representative from John Noel Management was willing to reveal that she is paid for TV appearances on the likes of The Weakest Link and The Friday Night Project, and for reality TV projects such as Celebrity Driving School, What Jade Goody Did Next and Jade's PA. They are also willing to reveal that she has just released her third fitness DVD. But they are notably cagey about what she actually does for a living. Apart, that is, from fight with her boyfriends, make up with her boyfriends, and have an apparently continual series of cancer scares. "They camp outside my door," she told her fellow "celebrities" at the weekend. And she always delivers.

"When she first left the house there were, um, concerns, about how her life would be," says a spokeswoman. "We were approached by Endemol to advise her on how to deal with all the media requests." Jade may not be "the sharpest tool in the sandwich box", but she has some working for her, according to the PR guru Max Clifford.

"With good management and a bit of luck Jade can last another two or three years as a celebrity," he predicts. And, he thinks, the public deserves the celebrities it gets. "I think the magic is that anybody watching Jade would think, 'I could do that, and I could do that better,'" he says. "More and more young girls and boys want to be famous. And if Jade can be, anyone can be. She makes them feel intelligent.''

Ten thousand people tried to emulate Jade last year and get into the Big Brother house, which is now in 20 countries. When she first appeared, reality TV was in its infancy. Now every second programme seems to be The Apprentice, or Jamie's Kitchen, or Just The Two of Us, or Celebrity Love Island. It seems to have done - or magnifed - something fundamental to the British psyche, an embracing of the vulgar, the lowest common denominator of mediocre, pointless television, according to Paul Watson, whom many credit with the invention of the genre 30 years ago.

Clifford says of Goody's current appearance: "The others resent her because celebrities are generally very insecure and empty vehicles. And let's face it, if they had a career they wouldn't go in this show. You only go on a show like this if you have nothing to lose. And the lucky thing for Jade is that she doesn't have any delusions. When you start taking yourself seriously as a star, that's when the problems start." This time round, though, does Jade risk reminding the public why she was public enemy number one in 2002? "Those around her have had three or four years to prepare her for going back into the house," says Clifford. "A lot of professionals are making a great deal of money out of her, and they'll be shrewd enough to protect their investment. Provided she's sensible there's no reason why this shouldn't be another successful step."

It is difficult to see what more Jade has to throw at us. Almost five years on, the public may think they have acquired an immunity to her peculiar brand of talentless fame. But Jade has a secret weapon: her mum. However stupid, however mean and however intolerable Jade was in 2002, Jackiey is worse by miles. And she has had £125,000 of cosmetic surgery to make her an even more zeitgeist anti-heroine.

As Ken Russell fled the house, he revealed that, while Jade was bad, he simply could not tolerate Jackiey. "She is a disruptive force verging on pure evil," he insisted. "She seems not to have control of her tongue or her brain, if she has one." Jade tried to be loyal, but even she was soon in tears in the diary room. "My mum's doing my head in," she sobbed. "I can't get away from her voice."

Jade Goody, the most hated woman in Britain, has been superseded by an even more invidious evil. She is louder, stupider and more cosmetically enhanced. And she has history. Jackiey may have admired Davina's bottom and lost the use of her left arm in a motorbike accident, but she is not your typical one-armed lesbian. When Jade was interviewed in 2002, she confessed that her mum had given her her first joint aged five, beaten her "because I hadn't fixed my wendy house properly" and once, in a haze of prescription medication, forgotten she had a daughter. "There were times when it was hard," she admitted, sagely.

Having thrown everything she has at us, Jade has brought out her trump card. "You thought I was bad?" she seems to be saying. "You should see my family."