TV star Jeff Brazier reveals his kids are still angry eight years after their mum Jade Goody’s death… and they ‘wish he’d died instead’
Dad of two opens up as he releases book about coping with grief
IT’S said you always hurt the one you love – and Jeff Brazier has often had to remind himself of that since his sons lost their mum Jade Goody.
Bobby and Freddie were just five and four years old when reality TV star Jade died of cervical cancer on Mother’s Day 2009 aged 27.
Eight years on and the pain is still acute for the boys, who are now struggling to navigate adolescence without their mother.
And that pain can, at times, cause uncomfortable moments for their devoted dad.
With a heavy sigh, Jeff admits: “The worst possible thing I’ve heard from both boys would be: ‘I wish it was you that was dead and not Mum.’
“My expectation was always that they’d take things out on me but I didn’t know to what extent.
"I didn’t know as they grew older, what would be possible to come out of their mouths.
“Grief generates the worst possible feelings, it really clouds your judgement.
“The words they come out with they’re not always in control of and they’re just saying them because what they’re actually trying to say is ‘Dad, help me’.”
The words they come out with they’re not always in control of, and what they’re actually trying to say is ‘Dad, help me’
“I know I shouldn’t be just hearing the words, I should be diving out of the way of them and recognising where they come from — and know there is a great need for me to look after that feeling of anger.”
It is perhaps no surprise that both boys have had a rocky time at school.
Jeff recently moved the family back to Essex after a year in Brighton because Bobby had a difficult experience with bullying at a secondary on the south coast.
Bobby is now back in his old Essex private school.
Jeff was also faced with the agonising decision of going against Jade’s dying wish that the children always be privately educated after Freddie was diagnosed with ADHD last year.
For years before, Jeff felt Freddie was struggling to fit in at his private school which, he says, “threatened exclusion”.
So last year he moved him to a local comprehensive which he says better understands his needs.
He reveals: “You have to do your best in the moment.
“I hope Freddie will get to the point where private school is useful to him but at the moment he doesn’t need that pressure to conform on a daily basis.”
He adds: “It’s very possible Jade might have had ADHD too, undiagnosed. Anyway, who cares? Freddie is beautiful and he’s wonderful.”
Jeff beams with fatherly pride for both boys, who he shielded from the public eye following Jade’s death in March 2009.
He has only recently started sharing pictures of the handsome young lads on social media.
Posts on his Instagram account show two happy boys with Freddie, 12, inheriting his father’s blond, cheeky chappy looks while Bobby, who turns 14 on Tuesday, resembles Jade.
Jeff says: “He’s got his mum’s best features and it does make him very handsome — but he doesn’t know it. As with any bereaved child, his confidence is not where it should naturally be.”
Jeff was only 29 when his ex Jade died after her short but high-profile cancer battle and he admits he questioned how he’d cope raising two grieving children alone.
The answer was to put the boys first while building his career as a TV presenter on X Factor tours and This Morning.
Alongside his presenting work, in recent years he has also trained and been working as a neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) qualified life coach, counselling other bereaved families.
All this has encouraged him to write a book he describes as a grief manual.
Jeff explains: “Writing it was therapeutic but it’s good for me to share the lessons we’ve learned along the way with other families.”
The book is nicely written and broken down into sections covering everything from how to break the news of a terminal illness to organising a funeral.
It uses real-life examples from the bereaved people Jeff has counselled.
But it is his and his children’s own experiences that make the most upsetting reading.
These include:
- Jeff waiting outside Jade’s hospital room as she tells Bobby and Freddie why Mummy won’t be coming home;
- Jeff taking the boys to visit Jade’s grave first thing every Christmas morning so they don’t feel guilty about enjoying the rest of the day;
- Jeff and the boys celebrating Mother’s Day on the 15th of every month by doing things such as trampolining — which Jade liked — to encourage them to talk about her regularly.
But it is not only Jeff’s boys who have suffered direct tragedy.
Despite his public image of a cheery Essex lad, Jeff’s life story has also been touched by it.
His younger brother Spencer has cerebral palsy and cannot speak.
As children the brothers and their mother Jeanette spent a spell at a women’s refuge in Yarmouth after her relationship with his stepfather broke down.
His biological father, Stephen Faldo, had abandoned him and his mother before he was born and in 1989 was one of 51 people killed when the boat he was skipper of, The Marchioness, crashed with another cruiser on the Thames.
Jeff’s grandad killed himself after being diagnosed with mouth and throat cancer just weeks after Jade’s death.
And in recent years Jeff has also lost his maternal gran and a favourite aunt.
Battening down the hatches was my coping mechanism... I stopped socialising with friends, stopped ringing people
Indeed, at only 38, Jeff is something of a grief expert — although that did not help him avoid what he believes is the common mistake of shutting people out when Jade passed away.
He admits: “Battening down the hatches was my coping mechanism.
“What mattered to me more that anything was that I did everything I could to be there for the boys and their grief. So I stopped socialising with friends, stopped ringing people.
“That was important for a period of time but I should have then let everyone back in a little — I didn’t.”
That’s something Jeff much hopes the victims of last week’s horrific terrorist attack in Manchester will be able to avoid.
He says: “I can’t imagine what the cruel, senseless nature of their loss has done to families of the victims of those killed in the Manchester attack.
This public support and love will gradually ebb away, but the unthinkable loss will remain
“They will undoubtedly be suspended in shock and disbelief at the fact their loved one was taken in such a cowardly manner in a place meant for enjoyment and the making of memories.
“There are no words for those families. My only hope amidst this unfathomable reality is that they draw strength from the solidarity that the nation has shown.
“I know only too well that this public support and love will gradually ebb away but their sadness, the unthinkable loss will remain.”
And back at their new Essex home the hatches are open.
Jeff chose a big house with lots of room for entertaining friends and a “man cave” in the back garden so Bobby and Freddie can always have mates over – after their homework is done.
Jeff says: “They can put music on, the computer on, YouTube on — they’re both obsessed with YouTube — and it’s their own private space.
"After all, they are young men now. Bobby is as tall as me and wears all of my clothes, which is OK as I wear all of his too!
“Bobby wants to go into entertainment when he grows up and he keeps mentioning presenting while Freddie loves people, loves animals — so whether that makes him a therapist, a vet, I’m not sure.
Jack is back in touch
SURPRISINGLY, one source of support now back in the lives of both Jeff and the boys is their stepdad Jack Tweed.
Jeff had banned him from seeing Bobby and Freddie after Jack, 29, went off the rails following Jade’s death.
Jack descended into hard partying and was convicted of several assaults.
But after bumping into him by chance recently, Jeff arranged for him and the boys to spend a Sunday afternoon with the Tweed family in Essex.
They gave Bobby and Freddie framed pictures of Jade taken during her wedding to Jack just weeks before her death in March 2009.
Jeff says: “Eight years ago when Jack was getting himself into a lot of trouble nobody would have blamed me for not wanting the kids around that.
“But I always knew he would eventually get to the point where he would settle.
“He seems at that stage in his life now.
“I loved Jade but I always remember she was not my partner when she died and the Tweeds have priceless memories of her for the boys that I don’t.
“The visit teleported them back to when Jade was alive. Freddie got straight onto the phone with Jade’s mum to tell her where he was.
“It was like in that moment, they were back in the moment when their mum was here – and there was something really powerful about it.”
“Either way, I’m excited about their futures.
That future will include Jeff’s pretty, PR girlfriend Kate Dwyer, whom he has been dating since 2014 and he reveals, he plans to marry.
He confesses: “It is definitely something that will happen in the near future.
“Bobby had some problems with the title ‘stepmum’ at first but they get on well now. It’s not easy when your kids are teenagers.”
Despite the unimaginable difficulties Jeff seems to have steered them from sorrow-filled boyhood to a bright future.
He sums up how in his own sunny way: “The only way through grief is to work through it and not turn it into some monster.
“For us, grief is a person — Keith Grief.
“He always turns up when we don’t want him to but over time you start to realise what he’s doing is actually helpful — because if grief didn’t exist what would make you remember that person, that relationship you’d lost?
“Keith, we didn’t like him at first but now we’re pretty grateful for his existence.”
— The Grief Survival Guide: How to Navigate Loss and All That Comes With It is published by Hodder & Stoughton June 4, £16.99.