by Cole, Cheryl
For instance, I began to worry that if Simon didn’t like a particular song choice he’d make sure they didn’t make a good track for it, to prove the point, but that would never have happened. I was totally paranoid because I was in such a weak place, mentally.
A waxwork of me was unveiled around this time, and I remember going to Madame Tussauds to see it and just staring at the model in bewilderment. ‘Why am I here?’ I thought. There were already models of Simon, Louis and Sharon Osbourne, grouped together, and I said, ‘Do not put me near Simon Cowell, I want to be on my own.’
It is so freaky to see yourself in life form when you’re only used to seeing a reflection of yourself in a mirror, or on the TV, and I felt unnerved. ‘Who are you?’ I thought. It took me back to when I was in hospital, asking myself: ‘Who the hell am I?’ The question had been on my mind ever since, but I hadn’t had time to find out. I hadn’t dealt with it, and I still didn’t know the answer.
It was at this point that I asked my brother Garry to join my team. I wanted to promote Lily from PA to personal management as she was doing so well, which meant her old job would be available. Garry had recently left university and split up from his long-term girlfriend, and I thought it would be a good time for him to do something new and see a bit more of the world. For me personally it meant I got to spend more time with my little brother, and I wouldn’t have the worry of hiring a stranger and wondering if they were going to be trustworthy.
‘Why not?’ Garry said. ‘Yerl have to teach us the ropes though, Cheryl. I’m not used to all this celebrity hoo-hah.’
Just hearing his accent was always refreshing, and I knew straight away that Garry would be a reality check for me, too, which could only be a good thing.
I also decided I would need a manager in America; someone I could trust. My second album, Messy Little Raindrops, was coming out soon and it would have been impossible for Hillary to deal with everything I was doing once I was living in LA and working on American X Factor. Will was the person I turned to. He brought me into his team, and eventually his manager, Seth Friedman, became my US manager. This came into effect in March 2011.
On the face of it, I was coping. I was preparing for my new life and making some good decisions, but I was still close to tears all the time. It was like my nerves were always close to snapping, and I felt permanently on edge. I was making practical plans to keep my mind busy, but emotionally I wasn’t functioning properly at all.
I remember going to a fancy dress party that Sarah threw for Halloween and feeling in a perfectly good mood at the start of the night. Kimberley and I went as the grim reapers and Nicola was dressed as Lady Antoinette. The girls came into The X Factor to get ready and we all walked directly past the paps outside, which had us in hysterics.
Nobody knew it was us when we arrived at the party either, because our heads were still covered. Once we got to our table we took the masks off and the fashion designer Julien Macdonald joined us. He was dressed as the devil, which turned out to be very apt. First he made a rude remark about Kimberley’s weight, referring to her as ‘not quite’ the skeleton he had as company. Then he started throwing unnecessary insults out in every direction, and it was soon my turn to be in the firing line.
‘You,’ he said in his Welsh accent. ‘What is that red hair all about? It is horrible, and I mean awful!’
I’d dyed my hair red not long before, just because I felt like a change, and I couldn’t believe this man was criticising me in front of friends and strangers like this.
‘I take it you don’t like it then?’
‘No, it’s one thing if you’re being paid for it, if it’s a L’Oréal thing or something, but if you’re not being paid for it you need to dye it back.’
‘Actually, L’Oréal red hair dye sales have shot up by 600 per cent since I did this, so you should do your f***ing research.’
It didn’t stop there. Julien then went on to tell me that I’d been looking terrible lately, and Dannii had been looking better than me in the previous weeks.
‘I suggest you sack your stylist immediately,’ he said.
As you can imagine, with the fragile state of mind I was already in, I was not going to put up with this at my friend’s party, so I gave him a suggestion.
‘You know what you should do? I suggest you leave this table. F*** off!’
While all this was going on Nicola was sat there in her Lady Antoinette dress and white face looking like something out of our ‘Can’t Speak French’ video, gobsmacked at what was being said.
Looking back, we all laugh our heads off when we remember the scene. Around the table there was an assortment of fancy dress characters, some splattered in blood and all in elaborate costumes and make-up. Julien was stunned at my reaction to his rudeness, and all the grisly-looking and gruesome characters stared at him in disbelief as he slunk away from the table.
I was meant to be wearing one of his dresses the very next week on X Factor but I never did, and I have never worn his clothes since. How could I? He tried to drag me down when I was already feeling at my lowest ebb, and it was totally uncalled for. He sent me flowers to apologise afterwards but the damage was done, and at a time when I really didn’t need it.
In hindsight this was quite a pivotal moment for me. I’d been running away from my feelings for a long time, and now my emotions were catching up with me and everything was coming to the surface.
My mam said she would help me finish packing up the house, and on the night of the X Factor final all my possessions were in boxes, ready to go. I’d just watched Matt Cardle win the show. I liked him, because he was a decorator and he reminded me of my dad when I was growing up, always singing a tune while he was painting. Of course I was delighted for Rebecca when she came second too, but I’d be lying if I said I was ecstatic.
I was wearing a beautiful long red dress and I was smiling on the stage, but inside I felt too stressed and anxious to enjoy the moment, and all I could think was: ‘I’m so glad it’s over.’
I broke down when I got home and saw the house packed up. It felt so final. ‘It’s really over,’ I sobbed to my mam. ‘I know, Cheryl,’ she said. ‘But things will work out, you’ll see.’
My mam went home to Newcastle for Christmas and I slipped up there on Christmas Eve to deliver presents to all the family, then returned to my new house alone. I told everyone I wanted to unpack and settle into my new place, but the truth was I felt so miserable I didn’t want to spoil Christmas for everybody else.
‘You don’t seem yourself,’ my dad had said as soon as he saw me. ‘I’m worried about you.’
Everybody was saying the same thing, but nobody could help me. ‘I’ll be fine,’ I said, but really I wanted to say, ‘Help me. I can’t live like this any more. I hate the lifestyle. I wish I could come back home and walk to the corner shop in my pyjamas but I can’t. I’m miserable as hell.’ That phrase that first came to me when I was in hospital was ringing in my head: ‘I might have the shoes, but I can’t walk to the shops in them.’ How true that was.
A month earlier, on Children in Need, Sir Terry Wogan had introduced me as ‘the nation’s sweetheart’, which blew me away. Sir Terry was someone I’d watched on telly from when I was a kid. It was very kind of him, but to me he was the national treasure, not me, and if this was what it felt like to be the nation’s sweetheart, I didn’t want the title, not at all.
On Christmas Day I cooked myself a ready-prepared turkey in a baking foil tray that I carved with a butter knife, as I had no kitchen utensils. I ate it with some vegetables and it was quite nice actually, but just as I finished eating it I got a text from Ashley’s mam.
‘We miss you,’ it said. It was harsh to read that, and I started sobbing uncontrollably. I broke down completely, in fact. It was like one of those scenes in the movies. I collapsed on the stairs and was sobbing so hysterically and was so out of control I couldn’t breathe.
I did that three or four times in that house. One
time it happened after I texted Ashley in a moment of desperation and weakness, telling him how low and alone I felt. I knew he’d been at rock bottom too, and I thought that if he knew how bad I was he might find it in himself to talk to me about what he’d done, to help me understand and move on.
‘Can’t you tell me why?’
‘I don’t know what to say. It’s too painful,’ was all he said.
This was unbelievably hard. I’d hoped Ashley might give me some kind of closure after the divorce, but this told me that he’s just not articulate enough to put into words what had happened. I had to face the fact he might never grow up enough to be able to talk to me in the way I needed him to.
I tried to pull myself together for New Year, when Derek and I went to stay with my good friend Janine and her family in South Africa. I’d met Janine when she did all the interior design in the houses I lived in with Ashley. She knew me very well, and she could see I wasn’t myself at all.
‘Where did Cheryl go?’ Janine asked when she saw how miserable I was.
I couldn’t answer her. I’d spent six years of my life being half of a couple with Ashley. Even Janine admitted she missed him, and I really felt like half of myself had gone. Derek did a good job of entertaining everyone, and also tried to get me to calm down about the fact there were paparazzi following us everywhere.
‘Just go and walk on the beach and pretend like they’re not there,’ he said.
‘No. I feel invaded. I hate them so much. I don’t want to give them anything when they’re hunting me like an animal.’
I’d put on weight after the malaria because I’d been eating more to build myself up as the doctors advised, but my body hadn’t stabilised and I was now bigger than I wanted to be. I couldn’t bear to get on the scales, and that was another reason I didn’t want to be photographed, especially on the beach.
I could see that Derek was thinking I was going over the top and was worried about how paranoid I’d become, but I didn’t confide in him and so he couldn’t help me. I was losing my head all the time and I’m sure I’d been having a nervous breakdown for months. I can see that now.
One day I went absolutely mental when the paps took photographs of Janine’s young children through her glass balcony that overlooks the beach. ‘I’m so, so sorry,’ I sobbed. ‘I can’t believe they’re invading your privacy too. It’s inhumane.’
‘I can’t bear to see you cry,’ Janine said. ‘Don’t let it get to you so much. You need to try to relax. There’s nothing we can do about it now.’
‘How can I relax? To relax I have to accept that the paps are going to violate me. I just can’t do it!’
We were there for 10 days and that’s how I was the whole time – sad and paranoid and a shell of my normal self. The pressure of keeping the secret that I had the job on American X Factor was adding to my stress, but at the same time I was relieved I wasn’t starting until May, as I knew I had a lot of preparation to do, both mental and practical.
I also had a couple of other projects on the go. I’d talked to Will about doing a little eight-track album, and I was making progress with my plans to do something for charity and help the kids back home in Newcastle. Through climbing the mountain for Comic Relief I’d met a lady called Kristina Kyriacou, who now worked for the Prince’s Trust. She suggested I could set up a foundation that could work alongside the Prince’s Trust, helping disadvantaged youngsters in the North East.
The whole thing sounded perfect, not least because I remembered asking the Prince’s Trust for help myself as a teenager. I wrote in and asked for money so I could do gigs. I never got it, but the whole idea that I could help kids like me from council estates was incredibly appealing.
I was invited to have lunch with Prince Charles at Clarence House in the middle of February, when the Cheryl Cole Foundation was officially launched. I’d been a big fan of the Prince ever since he was accidentally caught on mic on a ski slope, being rude about the press and telling his boys he couldn’t bear one of the royal correspondents. I’d also sung in front of him at the Royal Variety and shaken his hand at several red carpet events before, but clearly this was very different.
Before the lunch I was briefed at length on the etiquette of dining with our future king, and it was explained that I must always address him as ‘Your Royal Highness’. We had 45 minutes scheduled, and I was feeling quite nervous when I was finally escorted into a reception room and invited to sit on a sofa opposite him.
‘Do you like hip hop music?’ he asked me very unexpectedly after the formal introductions had been made, which instantly put me at ease.
‘Harry has it on upstairs and I can’t understand a word they’re saying. It’s just banging noise to me.’
‘I like it,’ I told him.
‘You do?’
I couldn’t help smiling, imagining Prince Harry in his bedroom blasting out 50 Cent, with Prince Charles shouting up the stairs, ‘Turn that noise off!’
Prince Charles then told me he enjoyed listening to classical and orchestral music, and went on to say he was also a big fan of ballroom dancing.
‘We all love watching Dancing with the Stars,’ he said, which was a surprise, and had me smiling again.
‘Derek is our favourite dancer, actually. Camilla and I would love to learn the Argentine tango. Maybe Derek could teach us?’
‘I’ll ask him if you like, I’m sure he’d love to.’
I was really enjoying myself. I completely lost myself in the conversation, in fact, and when Prince Charles told me that he enjoyed watching the ballroom dancing in some of the old movies, I totally forgot myself.
‘They don’t make them like that any more, Charles,’ I replied.
‘Why?’ I said to myself immediately afterwards, hearing the word ‘Charles’ hanging in the room.
Honest to God, I wanted to pull that whole sentence out of the air and put it back in my mouth! Lily was sitting across the room and I could feel her wanting to laugh, but Prince Charles was absolutely brilliant. He changed the subject again very skillfully, and didn’t draw any attention to my mistake at all. He spent an hour and a quarter with me in the end, and I left feeling really positive and excited about what we could achieve.
In fact, working with the Prince’s Trust and making music with Will were the only things that did inspire me at that time. Whenever I thought about the American X Factor I still felt absolutely nothing. It left me totally numb. Even thinking about the move to LA did nothing for me, although I had to start making arrangements.
I applied for passports for Buster and Coco, I started organising my clothes for the show and I went house hunting. I was looking at fabulous condos worth millions of dollars up in the Hollywood Hills. It should have been a real treat and a pleasure, but I felt no buzz whatsoever.
‘What are you doing driving around LA having your forehead photographed?’ Simon said to me one day.
I was really annoyed by that. It was his fault my American X Factor job was a big secret, and I was sticking to my side of the bargain and trying not to let the world’s press know that I was buying a home in LA.
There was speculation all the time about me being desperate for the job and wanting to ‘crack’ America, which was really irritating too, as it had never been an ambition of mine, ever.
‘Can’t you just make the announcement? You’re letting the press toy with me.’
Simon just laughed. In his world, he would send his ‘people’ to buy him a house and he couldn’t understand why I was doing all this myself, or why I even bothered to try to hide from the paps, which is how come I had my forehead photographed through a car window. To him the speculation simply added to the hype of the show and it was all fantastic publicity.
‘You’re mad, you know that, don’t you?’
I didn’t answer, because I always avoid letting Simon know when he’s right, and I thought he was spot on this time.
‘Yes,’ I thought to myself. ‘I think I am completely cr
azy.’
18
‘Cheryl, I know you’re laughing but this is really bad’
‘Good luck,’ Simon said. He was on the phone to me the day before I was starting work on American X Factor, in May 2011.
‘Thanks,’ I replied. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’
I should have been so happy. I was about to start work on this massive show and Simon had made it sound like my dream job.
‘This is the perfect next step for your career,’ he told me. ‘And you’re so good at spotting talent.’
I hoped he was right. I wanted this job to be more about the talent and less about me, and from what Simon was telling me, that was how it was going to pan out. I wasn’t known in America. People didn’t know all about Ashley and the divorce. It was an opportunity for a fresh start and I should have been on cloud nine, but I felt dead inside, just as I had when the job was first given to me. There was not one spark of excitement, nothing at all. I wasn’t even particularly nervous. I’d picked out an outfit for the first day that I was comfortable with – purple trousers and an orange top – and I’d decided to have big hair. I felt ready to start, but that was about it.
It had been tough leaving England. I asked Ashley if I could see him, to say goodbye. He was apprehensive but agreed when I explained to him it was important to me. I thought it would be like laying my ghosts to rest before I went, something that would help me to move forward in my new life in America. I knew it would be painful, but something was telling me to do it, to make that final break.
I felt really nervous as I drove up to the house. I had not seen Ashley’s face for over a year, literally, and I wasn’t sure how I was going to react, especially as we were meeting in our old marital home, where he now lived. My heart fluttered as the front door opened, and when I saw Ashley standing there I felt so emotional. He took me by the hand and led me inside, calling me babe, just like I was still his wife. It was heartbreaking.