OK! mag presumes Jade Goody’s death

The excesses of the popular press regarding Jade Goody, the cancer-stricken reality television star, know no bounds. The publishers of the celebrity magazine OK! put out a “tribute edition” on Tuesday which ignored the minor inconvenience that Goody was still alive, and simply presumed her death with the cover lines: "In Loving Memory" and "Jade Goody 1981-2009".

OK! is owned by the Daily Express proprietor Richard Desmond, a man not recognised for sensitivity or indeed taste. It appears he was keen to get his pound of flesh from Goody’s story having paid £700,000 for exclusive coverage of her wedding to Jack Tweed earlier this month. She is certainly proving good for business: the wedding edition of OK! sold a record-breaking two million copies.

Meanwhile, publishers HarperCollins have announced that the final months of Goody's battle with cancer are to be detailed in a book entitled Forever in My Heart, which it describes as a "modern day parable".

Belinda Budge, managing director of Harper Non-Fiction, said: "This is Jade in her own words. It is impossible not to be moved by her heart-warming voice which comes through loud and clear on every page of this last diary. “

As for Goody, she is said to have spent most of Tuesday drifting in and out of consciousness. Prior to this, she told New! magazine that her spirits had been lifted by an answerphone messages from Michael Jackson and bouquets of flowers sent by Amy Winehouse and Robbie Williams. ·