Jade Goody has donated £25,000 to an Indian charity that cares for children who run away from their homes. Goody spent nearly 90 minutes with some of the children at the 'Anubhav' or 'Experience' charity in the Indian capital. "I am not giving the money to improve my image. It is to improve the lives of the underprivileged children," she told reporters.
Goody said she was donating to charities whatever she earned from appearing on the TV show and subsequent media interviews. Indian Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty won the TV reality contest, Celebrity Big Brother, after being confined in a house for about three weeks with Goody and other participants. Goody outraged the public and sparked allegations of racism after she bad-mouthed Shetty's cooking of Indian food and mocked her accent. After the British public voted to evict Goody from the reality TV show in January, she insisted that she was not racist.
Big Brother's Jade Goody speaks to Indian media in Delhi as she continues attempts to make amends for her scandalous behaviour during Big Brother's race row "Seeing the pain of these children put everything into perspective and made me think that the problem I might have at home is nothing in comparison to what these children are going through. It has been an amazing day," she said. Goody, who is on a four-day visit to New Delhi, said she has received a warm welcome. "This was not a publicity stunt. Nobody knew I was coming out here," she said, adding that she paid for the trip herself. She said she would not visit Mumbai to meet Shetty. Shetty earlier said Goody would find India a tolerant and cultured country, according to her publicist, Dale Bhagwagar. Bhagwagar said Shetty hasn't dwelled on the incident. "Shilpa doesn't hold grudges or animosity against anyone," Bhagwagar said. "She has moved on after 'Big Brother'."
The Indian Tourism Office had placed advertisements in several British newspapers inviting Goody to experience the healing nature of India. However, Goody said she was in India on a private visit. Goody became famous after appearing on the non-celebrity version of "Big Brother" and earned an estimated £8 million through television and magazine appearances, an autobiography and an exercise video. Shetty, who is shooting 'Metro,' a Hindi-language movie about careers pushing love to the back seat, is also expected to cash in on her newfound celebrity in the West. British celebrity publicist Max Clifford, hired by Shetty to develop her career in Britain, has estimated she could earn £1 million in the next year from new contracts.