Cheryl: My Story

by Cole, Cheryl

  Part of me would always love Ashley, I realised. I had loved him so much I couldn’t imagine a day when I would feel nothing for him. The difference now was that I also knew that there was so much water under the bridge I would drown if I ever went back to him.

  A whole year had passed since the divorce, but I had spiralled so deep into the darkness afterwards that it had taken me this long to come up into the light, to see things this clearly.

  19

  ‘Get me into my music again!’

  ‘Sorry to bother you with this, and I’ve already warned them you won’t do it, but there’s this new Cameron Diaz movie, and they want you to play a talent show judge …’

  It was Seth on the phone, sounding apologetic.

  ‘Let’s do it!’ I said, as soon as I’d heard a few more details. It was the movie of the bestselling book What to Expect When You’re Expecting, and they wanted me to make a tiny cameo appearance as a talent show judge. I’d be sending myself up, basically, and it would mean going to Atlanta, Georgia, for three days of filming in August 2011.

  I’d done a cameo role before, with Girls Aloud in a St Trinian’s movie in 2007. That had been good fun to do, even though we only made a ‘blink and you’ll miss it’ appearance right at the end.

  ‘Honestly, Seth, I don’t take myself that seriously. I don’t care if I’m sending myself up. I can easily move a few recording sessions. Let’s go!’

  I’d had a similar reaction a month or so earlier when Will had asked me if I felt ready to make some music again.

  ‘Yes! Get me into the studio!’ I’d said. ‘Get me into my music again!’ It felt like exactly the right move, and I was actually properly excited. I hadn’t felt that way about work for a long, long time but I was almost tingling when I thought about working on another album.

  I had no husband to think about, no X Factor, no malaria, and not even any paparazzi to distract me. All I had was a big back garden and time on my hands. It felt so good, and I started making plans to work on my third solo album with Will.

  Now, because of Seth’s call, I was about to find myself in another one of those ‘you couldn’t make it up’ situations, and that was before we even got onto the movie set.

  Me, Seth and Lily all went out to Atlanta together. I’d never been there before and I went straight out for a look around, wearing no make-up, trackie bottoms and a pair of new trainers that rubbed my feet really badly. As soon as we got back to the hotel I had to get the trainers off, and I sat down in a hallway to give my feet a rub.

  ‘Look at the state of them,’ I frowned. My feet were dirty, covered in blisters and the skin was hanging off in lumps. ‘It’s disgusting,’ I said, as I began pulling off a layer of red skin.

  ‘Cheryl, hi! It’s so nice to meet you!’

  I looked up, horrified, to see Cameron Diaz standing before me, looking amazing, and stretching out her hand to me.

  ‘Hi!’ I said, standing up on my bare feet and wishing the ground would swallow me up.

  ‘Hey, I’ve got some southern fried chicken, d’you want some?’

  I knew it’s one of the things they’re famous for in that part of America and it would have been rude to say no, so there I was, like a little street urchin, eating chicken with my grubby hands and chatting to Cameron Diaz about her latest movie.

  She had no make-up on either and was not dressed up at all, but as I said to Lily and Seth later, she is Cameron Diaz.

  The filming itself ran smoothly. I had to play a ‘Celebrity Dance Factor’ judge who thinks she’s the real star of the show and dances on the table. It was great fun, and Cameron and her co-star Matthew Morrison were really lovely, encouraging me and praising me, as they knew this wasn’t my normal day job.

  ‘I could do this again,’ I said to Lily. ‘I didn’t realise I’d enjoy it so much.’

  I really was enjoying myself, and everybody could see a change in me. I sent my first ever Tweet from Atlanta, on 29 August 2011, which also made me feel good. I’d always been wary of Twitter, yet I’d spent all these years wishing I could tell the truth about what was going on without having my words twisted in the press, and now I realised I could.

  ‘Why have I not done this sooner?’ I giggled to Lily. ‘It’s fun. I can’t believe I can actually put my own words out there, just like that.’

  She was grinning from ear to ear. ‘It’s great to see you like this,’ she said. ‘Welcome back, Cheryl!’

  I thoroughly enjoyed being able to interact with fans online. One thing I’ve always loved about touring or doing signings or anything like that is being able to talk to the fans. I’ve always been fascinated by their stories, and it was incredibly gratifying and humbling whenever a young girl told me I’d inspired her.

  I’d started calling the fans ‘soldiers’ after I did ‘Fight For This Love’ and had that whole military theme going on, and before I knew it I had tens of thousands of ‘Cheryl soldiers’ following me on Twitter. That was so inspirational for me. My faith in the sisterhood was being well and truly restored, because I felt such a sense of camaraderie from my female followers. Some set themselves up as my protectors, defending me when I was criticised, and others offered support, telling me: ‘I get why you went back to Ashley. It happened to me.’

  I had a strong sense that I was turning a corner, and a couple of other big events at the end of 2011 really reinforced that feeling.

  Going to Afghanistan to present a Daily Mirror Pride of Britain award to the British troops in September was one of them. This was an award I’d supported for several years, and it was an honour to be invited to see first-hand what our soldiers were doing at Camp Bastion in Helmand province.

  I told the soldiers I didn’t mind what I did out there, and they took me at my word and led me out on a very scary night-time mission. It wasn’t until I’d scaled a wall and had a Taliban member actually pointing a gun at me that I realised it was all a fake practice run. I had honestly never been so terrified in my life, and it was a huge eye opener about what our soldiers go through. It put a few things in perspective for me. My job was not a matter of life and death, and life is too short to worry about some of the celebrity rubbish that had got to me in the past.

  For a laugh, the soldiers dressed up a dummy to look like Simon, and invited me to press a detonator and blow it up. I thought it was hilarious and really enjoyed the joke, and when I got home I received a text from Simon.

  ‘Now you’ve blown me up in Afghanistan, can we talk?’

  I had not spoken to him for six months, and I replied, ‘I’ve just flown home and am feeling really emotional. I’ll let you know when I can talk to you.’

  It was his fifty-second birthday in a couple of weeks’ time, and I’d heard he was trying to keep quiet about it. I saw an opportunity to have some fun at his expense and arranged for a little plane to fly around his house in Miami exactly 52 times, trailing a banner that said: ‘Simon Cowell is 52 today! Ha ha ha! Love Cheryl xoxo’.

  Another text arrived shortly afterwards, this time saying: ‘I.am.going.to.kill.you’, and then my phone rang.

  ‘It’s good to talk to you,’ Simon said. ‘I wasn’t in the right frame of mind in LA, because of all the pressure and expectation on the American show.’

  He told me that my comment to Richard Holloway, when I said ‘I’m getting there’ on the first day of auditions, caused alarm bells to ring.

  ‘Wow. I see.’ I said.

  ‘Taking you off it was the worst mistake I ever made and if I could have my time back, I wouldn’t do it again,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Thank you for saying that.’

  ‘And by the way, you’re looking good. I’m happy to see you smiling again, and I hope we can work together in the future.’

  It was October 2011 now, and I felt like I was healing more and more, all the time. Breaking the ice with Simon was part of the process. I didn’t want to work with him any time soon, but to be in touch again felt like a cloud had
been blown away from my life.

  Work on the next album was going well, and I’d been lucky enough to get a brilliant track with a heavy urban beat called ‘Ghetto Baby’. It was sent to me with no fanfare whatsoever, but as soon as I heard it, I loved it and desperately wanted it for the album.

  ‘Who’s it by?’ I asked Ferdy, one of the top guys at Polydor, who sent it to me. ‘It’s incredible.’

  ‘An up-and-coming artist called Lana Del Rey. You’ve got good taste in music – she’ll be big.’

  Another of my favourite tracks on the new album was written for me the day after I went to a party at the Roundhouse in Camden. Will was DJ-ing and I was letting my hair down and drinking too much champagne. ‘Are you sure you want to drink all that?’ Lily asked, to which I gave her a cheeky look and put my middle finger up.

  Just for fun, she took a picture of me and posted it on Twitter with the caption: ‘Really??? … step away from the Dom Perignon!!’

  The next day I was meant to be recording a track called ‘Deny Me’, but I was so hung-over I couldn’t get the words out of my mouth. The producer and writer sent me home and used the studio time to work on new material instead, and the picture of me on Twitter inspired them to write ‘Screw You’, which eventually ended up on the album. I loved the power and attitude of the song straight away, and I knew people would relate to it because we all have that someone we want to stick the middle finger up to. I’m not surprised there were stories that I wrote it about Ashley, but the truth is I wasn’t even capable of writing my own name that day, let alone a song.

  The Cheryl Cole Foundation was well off the ground by now. One of the first things I’d done for charity was to auction off 20 of my old dresses several months earlier, which raised more than £50,000. It had been bothering me for a long time that I had so many gorgeous dresses just hanging there in wardrobes, but I’d underestimated just how good it would make me feel to make use of them. It was really liberating to see them go, and looking back, it was another important part of my healing process.

  When we started to discuss how to spend the money raised, I met two amazing people: an ex-cocaine dealer who’s now a charity worker; and a girl who runs a flower shop who used to be a drug dealer. They were so inspirational, and my need to help others like them felt so powerful, it took my breath away. They were people who had wanted to help themselves and just needed that bit of help.

  I thought of Lee Dac and John Courtney and the other friends I’d lost to drugs, and felt so sorry that they hadn’t had help available to them when they needed it. I cried for them both, all over again. It was such a waste. It was too late for them, but it wasn’t too late for so many others. I still dared to hope that my brother Andrew might want to reform one day. I was getting some meaning and inspiration back into my life, and I was feeling more optimistic about the whole future than I had done in a long, long time.

  ‘It’s arrived,’ Lily said to me one morning, handing me a large envelope.

  It was November 2011. Inside was a copy of my official 2012 calendar, which I’d shot in the South of France several months earlier. I flicked through the pages, looking at each month in turn, and felt butterflies in my stomach.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Lily asked.

  ‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘I’m pleased with it, really pleased.’

  I loved the pictures, but what I was really thinking was that I had all these blank pages in front of me in 2012, and I wasn’t quite sure where my life was going.

  There were events in the diary, of course. It was Girls Aloud’s tenth anniversary, which we all wanted to mark in some way. We’d promised to talk about it at the beginning of 2012, to make sure we came up with something really special by our big day in November.

  I’d created a range of shoes for Stylistpick, which had been pure pleasure. I’d chosen the materials and helped with the designs, and I’d be doing a signing to launch them in London in February. I’ve always loved shoes and that was real girly fun for me, not work.

  I also knew there would be a couple of red carpet events to look forward to. I was attending the Cannes Film Festival for L’Oréal in May, and the premiere of What to Expect When You’re Expecting was taking place at Leicester Square the same month.

  Kimberley was finishing her run as Princess Fiona in Shrek in the spring too, and I was definitely going to her last performance, and Gary Barlow had been in touch about doing something at the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee in June.

  Before I knew it my next single would be out, then the new album … and I would be turning 29 on 30 June.

  I stared at that date on the calendar. I could barely believe that I was going to be 29, and it brought mixed feelings.

  I had all these exciting events to look forward to, but nobody to share them with. I should have been looking forward to celebrating my sixth wedding anniversary with Ashley, but now he wasn’t even in my life. I hadn’t seen him since my last birthday. Occasionally I’d seen him on an advert on TV or his face would pop up on Twitter, but I had not physically seen him for half a year. I’d moved on in many ways, though. I was happy again, and I was finding myself as a person.

  I had a heart to heart with my sister Gillian not long after this. We spent a fantastic family Christmas together and I looked at her and the kids and wished for so much more normality in my life.

  ‘I want some balance in my life,’ I told my sister. ‘I don’t want any extreme highs any more.’

  ‘Are you sure you mean that?’

  ‘Yes, because whenever things are going right, something goes wrong. It’s like the happier I am, the worse the crash.’

  Perhaps I had tempted fate in saying that, who knows?

  ***

  Literally a few weeks later I received one of Sundraj’s dreaded phone calls, the kind that starts with: ‘I’m sorry, Cheryl, but …’

  ‘Go on, what now?’

  ‘MC Harvey is claiming you had a secret relationship with him in 2010. Is it true?’

  ‘You’re joking? MC Harvey? Are you crazy? I don’t even know him, and I haven’t even set eyes on the guy for years.’

  ‘He’s saying you got close after your divorce.’

  ‘You are joking! I think I met him once, when I’d just got in Girls Aloud.’

  I’d seen him with So Solid Crew at a party God knows how many years ago, but we never even had what you could call a conversation.

  ‘He’s given an interview to Now magazine, and he’s alleging it started in 2010, after your divorce, and ended when you went off to do American X Factor.’

  ‘You mean when I was having my nervous breakdown? This is sick.’

  I started thinking about how Harvey cheated on Alesha Dixon and how she had texted me a message of support when Ashley first cheated on me.

  ‘Sundraj, nobody in their right mind is going to believe I left my cheating husband to go with somebody else’s cheating husband and, just for good measure, picked someone whose ex-wife I actually know personally, and have bonded with over how we’ve both been hurt.’

  ‘He has emails.’

  ‘Right, I’m not having this. I am just not having it!’

  I went on Twitter and tweeted to Harvey: ‘Was this “relationship” happening in your head?’

  I didn’t know if he’d made the whole thing up for publicity as I’d heard he had a single coming out soon, or if he’d been had, and had been duped into swapping emails with somebody posing as me. That was the only other possible explanation I could come up with, but to my surprise he responded on Twitter and stuck by his story.

  I was so furious that somebody could make up something like this out of absolutely nothing, and think they could get away with it. It was a complete and utter fabrication and I decided to sue the magazine’s publishers for libel. I was absolutely stunned when they published a second story a week later, making things worse by saying their lawyer had seen the emails, proving Harvey’s claims were true.

  ‘Are you sure about suing?
’ my brother Garry asked. He knew first-hand what a draining and long-winded process it is to sue for libel, because he’d done it himself, successfully, the previous year after a magazine and a newspaper had printed a story saying he was a convicted criminal.

  ‘The thing is, I had no choice,’ he said. ‘I mean, when I apply for another job in the future I’ll need proof of the truth. But there are thousands of stories out there about you that aren’t true. Is it worth the hassle?’

  We had a bit of fun listing some of the silliest and most annoying stories: the supposed boob job I’d had that upset my dad; the weight-reducing wind tunnel I’d apparently installed in the gym at my old house; the raw salmon and peppermint tea diets I’d somehow survived on and the ‘extensive’ dental surgery I’d vainly undergone.

  ‘None of those things are worth losing sleep over,’ I said to Garry. ‘What does it really matter that I’ve actually never had plastic surgery and I’ve only ever had two teeth capped? I understand that journalists have papers to fill and are under an immense amount of pressure to make headlines, and I get that people don’t want to read that I’m just a normal girl who plucks her own eyebrows and has her nails done once a fortnight.’

  The Harvey libel case was very different to anything I’d experienced before, though. Other stories linking me to different men were simply journalists adding two and two together and coming up with five. This was not like that at all. This was one person in the limelight saying things about another human being on a very personal level.

  I thought about Ashley now too, and how I’d seen him tormented by the stories about his cheating. I’d believed enough of the stories to end my marriage, but I had never believed every single claim. For one thing, I had been on a Virgin flight once and heard an air stewardess actually admit that she’d sold a kiss-and-tell on another footballer, just to make money. ‘Who cares if it’s true?’ she bragged to her mate. ‘It’s worth a lot of money to me.’

  I’d also had a text from Tulisa recently. I’d offered her support when she first joined The X Factor the previous year, because I knew how young she was and what she was letting herself in for. I’d invited her to my birthday party at the Sanderson Hotel too, even though it was only for very close family and friends, because I wanted her to know I was there for her.