Profile: John Noel - Power behind the BB throne

Profile of Jade Goody's agent John Noel

At midnight on the Friday night after Jade Goody was evicted from the Celebrity Big Brother house, agent John Noel told his client: 'You've offended lots of people in this country, from all nationalities, and also India. The first thing you need to do is apologise to those people.'

Goody had been shown a host of intensely negative press cuttings that ran during her time in the house by a psychologist working for producer Endemol UK and, 'completely devastated', was unable to discuss Noel's planned post-eviction strategy for over an hour. It was, he insists, the first time he had access to Goody following her eviction and controversial exit interview with Davina McCall.

' Big Brotherhas a routine with the people who come out of the house,' he explains. 'They go directly to Davina and after the show are briefed by two producers and a psychologist. I'm certainly not involved in that process.'

Remarkably, this is the first face-to-face interview the infamous Noel has ever given, despite running his successful eponymous talent agency since 1977.

Nevertheless, the publicity-shy agent proves surprisingly candid. He says he felt compelled to break his silence following the extraordinary press attention the Big Brotherracism row received and what he describes as the disgusting treatment of Goody. He can't have been happy either with his own press coverage which casts him as a shadowy behind-the-scenes figure, happy to pull strings in order to protect his clients who include Big Brotherpresenters McCall, Dermot O'Leary and Russell Brand.

Sitting in his modest Camden office, which is peppered with mementos from his stars and features racy handwritten messages on the walls, Noel launches a staunch defence of his position. He is softly spoken and chooses his words carefully, wheeling around his office on a chair and ignoring the almost constant ring of his mobile phone.

'These people who have opinions of me have never met me,' he says. 'I'm an agent and I pick talent, usually at the early stage of their career. And I believe in them. A lot people were saying Davina gave Jade an easy time. I don't think she did. I don't think you could expect Davina to take Jade apart. I mean why should she?

'But where's the conflict of interest? Do people think I got on the phone to Davina? This may surprise people but I never ask how the voting's going and I never look for privileged information. I never use my relationship with the people at Big Brother, Endemol or Channel 4. I don't need to. I know what I'm doing.'

Noel has to bid against other agents to win the rights to represent Big Brothercontestants, for example. 'I quite like the competition. Nobody in the early days was interested. When Jade came out I was the only agent in the queue.'

Noel developed a post-eviction strategy for Goody - now one of his most prolific and important clients - as soon as the racism row broke: 'We had to think quickly because the whole thing erupted.'

That strategy involved cancelling all of Goody's current projects (although some commercial partners got there first) and apologising to the UK public through three mainstream interviews. Attention has now turned to saying sorry to India and ensuring Goody's long-term personal security. Noel explains: 'We couldn't say sorry much more in this country, I think you'd agree with that. The next phase is to talk to the Indian people. Jade wants to go out to India on her own. The idea is to see a government official, do a press call and come back. And that will happen, as soon as we get the visa through.'

But, without doubt, Noel has his work cut out when it comes to shepherding the future career of Goody. 'Initially it's fair to say that everyone has dropped her,' he admits. 'We don't have anything in Jade's order book at the moment apart from ideas. I just thought that we should stop everything. The main job has been to get Jade in a situation where she can go down the road with her kids and not receive abuse and for her to be secure at home. We've not managed that yet.'

Noel proudly sticks up for his clients, most of whom remain loyal to him for years. And he takes responsibility for booking Goody on Celebrity Big Brother. 'I put her in the house and there have been those people criticising me for it. Ask me in a month's time if we can turn the situation around. Jade has got a very big hill to climb but you wouldn't believe how many offers I've had in for her already.'

Dropping Goody because of her outburst never crossed his mind. 'Why would you? To look good? To save your skin? If your brother or sister had been in the situation what would you do? Would you not speak to them and see how things were in six months' time? Bollocks.

'The row on the Wednesday night wasn't very nice. That was Jade losing her temper. None of us look good when we lose our temper. That was the problem: anger. It looked foul but I don't think it was the least bit racist.'

Noel, supported by a 15-strong team, also has clients such as Matthew Wright, Tess Daly and Kirsty Gallacher on his books and despite the ructions caused by the Goody affair, believes key agents will always play an essential role in broadcasting.

'The only thing that defines one channel or another these days is on-screen talent - Ant and Dec for ITV and Davina for C4,' he says. 'For me it's about collaboration between talent and production companies. Those people who form those alliances find themselves in strong positions.' Now Noel has to decide which production company will be charged with developing Goody's on-screen comeback - and many are interested.