Jade Goody told her sons about her cancer battle when it became "physically apparent" to them their mum wasn't well.
Jade Goody
The late reality star had children Bobby, now 16, and Freddie, 14, with Jeff Brazier before her tragic death aged 27 in 2009, and she tried to explain the heart-breaking situation to her boys in a way they "would understand".
Speaking on Giovanna Fletcher's 'Happy Mum Happy Baby' podcast, her ex said: "Nothing was said to the boys at the time. I guess it wasn't until her health deteriorated further, because it was physically apparent to the boys, that it was then we had to introduce the fact that mummy wasn't well.
"Obviously with the hospital visits it meant that she needed to escalate that and that's what we did the whole way through.
"When it took a step in whichever direction, but obviously it was always a turn for the worse, we kind of had to give them an explanation that a four and a five year old would understand because otherwise our concern was that they would make up their own minds as to what's going on and it will create more fear."
Jeff - who had split from the 'Big Brother' star at the time of her death - had to go against his instincts as a father to tell their kids everything would be OK.
He said: "It defies every instinct that we have in parenting and as much as those moments where you are delivering that information, especially the last moments, where she said, 'I'm going to be leaving and going to heaven'.
"That was the hardest conversation that anyone could ever have with their child. It's disgraceful that she had to do that, not disgraceful because there was another way - there wasn't.
"That was absolutely the right thing to do because it meant that the kids could start processing. The processing of loss is something that is still ongoing - from the minute that she said it ten years ago really, until this day."
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