Cheryl: My Story

by Cole, Cheryl

  I was used to buying sweets in shops like Cloughs, which was an old-fashioned sweet shop on Heaton Road, legendary in my area back home. There, you helped yourself to whichever sweets you wanted and paid the old lady, Mrs Clough, when your paper bag was full.

  I wanted five lollipops; one each for Nicola and me, and one each for the three girls we’d met on the dance floor.

  After I picked up the lollipops I started fishing in my purse for the 50 pence I owed the toilet attendant, with Nicola standing right beside me, reapplying her make-up. Then, completely out of nowhere, I was hit in the face. I swear on my mother’s life that’s what happened. I remember very clearly hearing Nicola screaming in her thick Scouse accent: ‘Oh my God, warra ya doin’?’

  ‘Go and get security!’ I screamed.

  It was the toilet attendant who had hit me and, in confusion and self-defence, I hit her back instinctively.

  Everything happened so fast. Before I knew it, I was being bear-hugged by the security guy, who was carrying me out of the toilet and taking me back to the VIP area. The club was extremely apologetic, and Nicola and I accepted the apologies from the management and asked if the three girls we’d met could come into the VIP area with us, where we sat and talked about what had just happened.

  About 45 minutes later we were still in the VIP area when I spotted some police officers in high vis jackets come into the club.

  I was still drunk, and in my drunken state I said to Nicola and the girls: ‘Do you think I should go and tell them what happened in the toilet?’

  I don’t think they even had a chance to answer me before a policeman came over and told me they were there to arrest me.

  ‘You’re arresting me? You’re joking!’ I said. I was absolutely stunned. ‘The toilet attendant started it. I’m the one who got hit in the face first. I only hit her back.’

  It was no good protesting. In total disbelief I was driven away in a police car, crying and shaking, and was locked up in a cell in Guildford police station. Nicola was completely distraught, and she had to go back to the hotel on her own and tell the other girls what had happened.

  ‘Just tell the truth, Cheryl, and you can’t go wrong.’ That’s what my mam had always taught me, and I really believed that if I just told the police the whole truth they would let me go.

  I sobered up pretty quickly in the cell, and I sat there quietly, feeling self-conscious in the little black top and burgundy trousers I had on. They took away my high heels and gave me some little flat shoes with smiley faces on, which seemed like a complete joke. I just wanted to get this over with and get out of there.

  ‘You’re being accused of assault,’ a police officer told me eventually, after 11 hours in the cell.

  My heart stopped.

  ‘But she hit me first and I just retaliated!’

  I started to cry.

  ‘Where is she?’ I asked. ‘Why isn’t the toilet attendant in here, why isn’t she being accused of assault too?’

  I just couldn’t believe it. I’d only been in the group for three weeks. I was number one in the charts, and I was locked in a police cell with the threat of an assault charge hanging over me.

  What was it Gillian had said to me that time, when our car window got smashed in during one of our trips to London? ‘Why is there always some kind of drama with you, Cheryl?’

  I was beginning to ask myself the same question, because it did always seem to be me at the centre of a drama. I gave the police a full statement and was released on bail in the morning, which was just as well as I was due to record something for Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway show that day with the girls.

  The news hadn’t been in the press yet and so I just asked make-up to cover up the bruise that had appeared on my face, and got on with the recording. I couldn’t tell you what I said or did on the show; my head was just filled with worry and confusion.

  All the time I was just telling myself: ‘Tell the truth, and it’ll all be OK,’ but I didn’t bank on what was about to happen next.

  A newspaper story appeared showing the toilet attendant with a big black eye. She’d been wearing glasses, and the bruise was really bad. It was horrible to look at and I couldn’t believe it was me who had done that. That was shocking enough to take in, but I was absolutely flabbergasted by what she was saying about me.

  ‘She punched me in the eye and screamed, “You f***ing black bitch …”’ was what the woman told the newspaper. I was also meant to have called her a ‘Caribbean jigaboo’, although I’d never even heard that phrase before. It wasn’t the sort of language we used in Newcastle and I didn’t even know what it meant.

  ‘We’re re-arresting you,’ the police said when I went to the station to answer bail.

  ‘No way! Is this some kind of a sick joke?’

  Unfortunately it wasn’t, even though the woman had not made any allegations of racism against me in her initial statement to the police. That had only come out in the newspaper, and I later discovered that she subsequently changed her police statement, four days later, to match what she had told the newspaper.

  ‘The journalists must have put words in her mouth,’ I protested. ‘I would never say anything like that. I’m not a racist – ask anyone who knows me. Anyone.’

  It was no good. I had fingerprints and a mug shot taken and in the March, two months after the incident, I was charged with racially aggravated actual bodily harm.

  ‘I’ll leave the group,’ I told the girls, and I meant it, wholeheartedly.

  ‘I’m not spoiling things for the four of you. This was my mistake and I’ll take the rap.’

  I’d been through hell every day. I had literally worried myself sick for two months, and once I was charged I felt much worse. This was a very serious allegation, and to be accused of being a racist was utterly devastating. I had black friends, and literally anybody who knew me could have vouched for the fact I was most definitely not a racist.

  ‘You don’t have to leave the band. Absolutely not,’ the girls all said to me, even though I knew they’d all been suffering too.

  ‘But I don’t want to ruin your careers. I’m strong enough to bounce back. I’ll just go, it’s best for everyone.’

  ‘No way!’ they each told me. ‘You’re staying with us.’

  We’d got to know each other really well by now. Nicola and I had become very close, and I’d gelled really easily with Kimberley and Nadine. Sarah was trickier. She’d been brought up practically as an only child as her brother was 16 years older than her, and she didn’t know how to be with other girls initially. We all accepted her the way she was though, and there was never any problem with that.

  Despite having the court case hanging over me I did my best to focus on the band, and the girls and I worked very well together in the studio, putting together our first album. The bosses at Polydor told me they were standing by me, and the support really kept me going in the months leading up to the trial, in October 2003.

  In every single interview I was asked relentlessly about ‘the incident’. I couldn’t say anything until the case had gone to court, which was just so annoying. I felt like everywhere I went people were judging me or feeling wary of me and it broke my heart to think that some people must actually have believed I attacked the woman because she was black.

  ‘It’s just ridiculous. Why are you even bothered?’ my mam said when I poured out my heart to her about how upset I was by the racist allegations.

  ‘You know it’s ridiculous but other people don’t,’ I said. ‘It’s hell. I’ve gone from the happiest I’ve ever been to being dragged so low, practically overnight.’

  ‘The truth will come out in court,’ my mam said. ‘Don’t worry about it.’

  I’m sure I would have sunk into depression again if I hadn’t been so busy with the group. The girls and I had something on every day all day, whether it was doing photoshoots, radio and TV shows or fittings and rehearsals. I should have been living my dream, but the truth was t
he court case hung over me like a dark cloud, taking the shine off everything.

  ‘Spill,’ Nicola would say when we got home at the end of the day and she could see I was upset. The record label had found us all one-bedroom flats in Westminster because the location was handy, but we all hated it because the building looked like an old folks’ home. Nicola’s flat was right next to mine, and having her to confide in was a godsend.

  ‘I feel like people are wary of me, even in the studio,’ I’d tell her. ‘It’s either that or they’re crackin’ stupid jokes, and it’s just not funny.’

  ‘Get lost! People aren’t scared of you,’ Nicola would say. ‘And nobody thinks it’s funny. They’re just trying to cheer you up.’

  Nicola was a little rock, and it helped so much that she had actually been there that night and knew exactly what had gone on in the nightclub.

  I must admit, when the incident first took place my immediate reaction had been to think I had done nothing wrong whatsoever. In my mind, because of the way I’d been brought up, I thought that acting in self-defence was a reasonable excuse for hitting the woman. As the months went on and I prepared for the trial, I started to see that it was not acceptable to have hit her under any circumstances, even in self-defence. I was prepared to say that in court, and I was actually looking forward to taking the stand because I wanted the whole truth to come out, and I had absolutely nothing to hide.

  ‘Wear the same outfit every day,’ Sundraj advised, because we knew the case would go on for several days. ‘Then the media hasn’t got a new picture of you to use.’

  If I’d needed any more proof of how this case had become as much about my newfound fame as my behaviour in the nightclub, that was it. Throughout the trial there were journalists camped outside Kingston Crown Court, and I hated having to walk past them each day.

  As soon as I sat in the dock I was flanked by two big security men.

  ‘Like I’m gonna run anywhere,’ I thought. ‘I wouldn’t get very far with the media following me.’

  When it was the toilet attendant’s turn to take the stand she appeared to be flapping and stuttering, which didn’t surprise me at all. The court heard that she went straight from the hospital, where she had her black eye treated, and back to the club, where it was alleged that staff were already putting their heads together to come up with a good story to sell to the press.

  The court also heard that the racism allegation only emerged after the Sunday Mirror became involved in the story, and on top of that, two girls came forward independently to say they had been the victim of unprovoked attacks by the same toilet attendant in completely separate incidents.

  I knew it had gone well, but waiting for the verdict to be delivered felt like an absolute eternity.

  ‘Guilty or not guilty?’ I heard the judge say. It was a horrible moment.

  I was cleared of racially aggravated assault but convicted of assault occasioning actual bodily harm. It was a bitter-sweet victory because the toilet attendant had wrongly accused me of being a racist and she had hit me, yet she walked away scot-free.

  I had to pay her £500 compensation and £3,000 prosecution costs, and I was ordered to do 120 hours of unpaid community service.

  Afterwards it felt like I’d been subjected to two trials – one in court and one in the media. The tabloid ‘verdict’ on me was summed up in one very memorable headline that appeared the next day: ‘The Girl’s a Lout but she’s not a Racist’.

  ‘How do you feel?’ Sundraj asked me.

  ‘Shocked at how newspapers can print lies and get away with it. It’s terrifying, actually.’

  ‘You must be relieved, though?’

  ‘‘‘Relieved” is not a word I would use. I’ve still got to do the community service and it feels unjust – I just wish this whole thing would go away.’

  I asked if I could do the community service in Newcastle, because I wanted to go home and get it over and done with, away from the press in London. When I look back through old diaries, I can see that in between the trial and completing my community service I was working flat out with the group, promoting our new single, ‘Jump’, every day. We performed it on Top of the Pops and went on stage at the National Music Awards, and when ‘Jump’ was chosen as part of the soundtrack for the movie Love Actually, all five of us walked the red carpet together at the film premiere in Leicester Square. Earlier the same night, Kimberley and I appeared on The Frank Skinner Show too. I would never have remembered any of those things if I hadn’t been reminded, and that says a lot about how the trial had affected me.

  I’d suffered very badly with stress throughout the whole ordeal, and I was still suffering for a long time afterwards. I was traumatised, basically, and I’d lost weight because it made me feel physically sick to put something in my mouth.

  ‘I can’t stomach it,’ I said all the time, because that’s actually how it felt. I was so full of worry that I felt that I couldn’t fit anything else inside me. The stress took over everything. It should have been so memorable to walk the red carpet for the very first time, especially when we had the honour of being involved in the film in a small way, but it’s a blank in my mind.

  Similarly, I have no recollection of being on Frank Skinner, although apparently all he wanted to talk about was the trial. I’ve always felt I had a bad memory attached to him, but I couldn’t have told you what it was without reminding myself of that interview.

  I really couldn’t get over how ironic it was that I’d gone through my whole life with trouble around me, yet had never been involved with the police myself until I was at the happiest point in my life, celebrating having a record-breaking number one.

  It was only once the trial was over that I began to think like that as I tried to make some kind of sense of it all, but it was really confusing. I found it impossible to take in how my life could go so far forwards and then backwards so quickly.

  The community service actually wasn’t half as bad as I expected it to be. In fact, it probably did me good to get away from all the madness in London and just be normal and feel more like myself again in Newcastle for a while.

  I started off sanding down benches at a little football club, which wasn’t difficult, just boring. I’d seen my dad sand things down and paint them my whole life, and I just got on with it like he always did. I also worked in a Salvation Army charity shop in the city centre, making cups of tea and sorting out old bags of clothes in the back.

  I was there for a month or so; certainly long enough to bond with the staff, because they cried when I left.

  One day, when I was sanding down the benches, I got caught by a press photographer, while I was yawning.

  ‘Why would anyone want a picture of me yawning?’ I said to my mam.

  We were in her kitchen, eating a Chinese from my favourite takeaway, the Kwok Pao, which was the one we’d used for as long as I could remember.

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t know, Cheryl. Seems odd to me,’ Mam said, and that was the end of the conversation. There was no analysis or soul searching about how my life or career was going. My mam just cleared away the dirty dishes and we watched EastEnders together.

  ‘How are all the girls?’ she asked. That was about the most probing question she put to me.

  ‘Fine,’ I said. ‘They’ve all been great, actually.’

  This was true, and my relationship with the rest of the girls was just about the best thing in my life at that time. We were all very different, and during our first year together we’d started to fall into particular roles.

  Kimberley was the sensible one who was very good at business figures. She knew where every penny was going and she’d sign stuff off with the accountants for us and always knew if someone was being overpaid. On the advice of the label, we’d moved out of Westminster and into new two-bedroom apartments in a posh complex called Princess Park Manor in Friern Barnet, North London. I shared with Nicola, while Kimberley shared with Nadine and Sarah chose to live alone.

&nbs
p; I’ve no idea how much the weekly rent was because Kimberley arranged for it to be paid before we got our wages, which was a smart move. During the first year we weren’t earning a fortune, but it was enough pocket money for a teenage girl to have. In the early months I actually used some of it to pay off the Provi man back home, as I owed him several hundred pounds. Once I’d cleared my debts I saved up and splashed out on a diamond cluster ring for myself. It cost £900 and was my absolute pride and joy.

  In total contrast to Kimberley, Sarah was always the party girl, enjoying the lifestyle of a pop star and having fun being in the group. Sarah also liked being in the studio, and she was so enthusiastic about singing. Her character definitely added to the group, without a doubt. She sometimes told us she felt a bit left out, but whenever we said ‘Come and live with us then!’ she always refused. In fact she was the first one to move away from us, out of Princess Park.

  Nicola is a very observant person and a very good listener, and even if she doesn’t agree with something she just takes it all in. It’s a special quality to have, but when it comes to music she’s very opinionated. I always sat up and listened whenever Nicola had something to say about the music, because it was always really useful and interesting, and it’s still like that to this day.

  Nadine was the lead singer and would go into the studio before the rest of us and record the demos. We’d then all choose from the tracks she had recorded and work out who was singing what around her vocals.