jade goodyJade Goody has shown off her new bald head in a photo shoot for a Sunday newspaper.

The one-time Celebrity Big Brother star lost her hair earlier this month as the result of chemotherapy. Jade has been undergoing an intensive course of the treatment alongside radiotherapy since being diagnosed with cancer last summer.

Until now though, she has covered her thinning hair with a series of headscarves and caps - but she told the News of the World that she’s too exhausted from the treatment to continue hiding it.

She explained: “My whole life I’ve had to laugh at myself before other people do. I’ve had to deal with stuff that other people have never had to deal with. It’s better that I say bad things about me before others do.

“And that’s why I’m doing this now. I know people will say, ‘Why is she whacking her bald head out in a newspaper?’ But I’d rather people see it first and then have their reaction away from me - in their homes or at their breakfast tables - and not in front of me. Because that would be too hard - for me AND them.

“There’s going to come a time soon when I take off my headscarf and I don’t want to walk into Tesco’s or wherever and have people staring at me with their mouths open.

“And yes, maybe it’s easier for me to do something like this because I’ve lived my life in the public eye. It’s what I do. But I actually AM sensitive. I AM human and I want to get this over with.

“It’s bad enough this disease can kill you, but it eats away at your confidence, your looks and your sexuality as well.

“I’m fighting for my femininity here. I don’t want that to sound trivial but I’m just 27 years old and even though I’ve got a disease that could kill me, I still want to look pretty.

“There’s never a minute of any hour of any day that I’m not thinking about this cancer. There’s not a second when I forget it’s there. How can I? I just have to look in the mirror to remind me. But I still need to feel like a woman. Is that so wrong?

“And I don’t want my kids to be embarrassed by my baldness. I don’t want them to think that if you’re bald you have to hide away. They need to know it’s OK to be bald.”