Reality star Jade Goody has died of cancer. Elsewhere, people continue to get married and have babies, or adopt babies and fire those babies' nannies.

  • Jade Goody, the English Big Brother lightning rod who had her terminal cervical cancer diagnosis broadcast on television, has died at the age of 27. She was home with family in Essex and had been sleeping for a day or so when she passed away early this morning. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown publicly praised her for raising awareness about the disease. [US]
  • After it was reported that rapper and world's most revolutionary person M.I.A. had named her baby Ickitt, the Sri Lankan was all "Naws, it ain't Ickitt." Now we learn what the actual, beautiful name is: the more insectoid and/or chemical Ikhyd. Her next two children will be named Aphid and Formaldehyde. [NYDN]
  • Natasha Bedingfield and Bruce Willis (while his ex was taking pictures of her butt) got married this weekend. Though not to each other. Also, Calista Flockhart's grizzled old boyfriend Harrison Ford is now her grizzled old fiance. The pair got engaged over Valentine's Day. She said "Yes," and then he threw a Russian terrorist out of an airplane. [Us]
  • Michael Jackson, one of our most prominent shadow people, is hoping to adopt another child while he's living in Britain. He reportedly wandered his hotel gift shop, eying the Big Ben salt shakers and Westminster Abbey snowglobes, but then saw a soot-faced young street urchin standing humbly in the corner. A perfect souvenir. He twiddled his long, white, reed-like fingers at the child and cooed at him softly. He then said a few hissing words in Parseltongue to the salesclerk and skittered off to find his wallet. When he got back, the street urchin was gone. But he plans to find another one. In the meantime, he's spending his days causing that creepy rattling sound you hear in your basement. [Showbiz Spy]
  • One of Madonna's nannies has been summarily dismissed, after she gave notice that she intended to quit. Angela, an Australian woman who cares for Malawian-adopted David, was told to leave before the notice period had ended. Maddy was apparently furious that the nanny had dared quit. Working for the She Hulk is a 24-hours-a-day type of jorb, as often times she'll get lost in her enormous Top Hat Closet in the middle of the night and need rescuing, or will need to be extracted from Dr. Basil Moriarty's Preserve-o-Matic machine, which she is run through twice a day. It's old and the leather straps that hold some of the pulleys are fraying so sometimes she gets caught halfway between the Gizzard Engorgenator and the Knee Knobbler. [Showbiz Spy]
  • Dr. Momtopus has withdrawn two more squirming, pink moneybags from the hospital, the improbably-named Maliyah and Nariyah. As she carried them out to her car, in sacks with dollar signs painted on the sides, she was heard to yell "I sure hope there aren't any paparazzi around to see me WITH MY NEW, CRISP CHILDREN." It's expected that after she takes five more kids out of the hospital, she'll return one more time to find that she's overdrawn the account. "Dammit," she'll curse as she pounds the reception desk. She'll then point to her stomach and say "Well how long will this take to clear?" [People]

Also, congratulations to Zombie Radar for their excellent reporting on the Jade Goody death:



[via Peter Feld]