by Cole, Cheryl
‘I don’t want to stick my nose into your business, but I think you should know this,’ Tulisa had texted. ‘I have just met one of the girls who claimed she slept with Ashley, and she’s admitted to me it wasn’t true, but the newspapers just printed it anyway.’
I’d gone beyond looking for evidence that Ashley hadn’t cheated on me as I had done to begin with. I knew he had, and so this news didn’t comfort me in that respect. What it did do, though, was make me understand Ashley’s fury and frustration at some of the claims that weren’t true. His words ‘They’re out to get me’ took on a new meaning because now I was experiencing first-hand how infuriating it is to be wrongly accused. I was the victim of a false allegation about an affair now, and I was learning exactly how hideous that is.
I was very glad I’d decided to sue, because Harvey then took things to another level. Next he claimed that not only did he have emails from me that proved we’d had a relationship, but from my mother too. Garry phoned Mam up.
‘Mother, you’re not gonna believe this, but this guy Harvey is saying you sent him a email as well.’
‘Eee, that’s the first I’ve heard,’ she replied.
Garry and I laughed, because we both know you’re lucky to get a text out of Mam, let alone an email, but it really wasn’t funny. She was at Langhorn Close, my old family home, and the thought of this poison spreading up to Newcastle really annoyed me. To get my mother mixed up in this was unforgivable.
One of the stories that had most upset me when Ashley and I got divorced was the one about my mam being part of our marriage problems, because she lived with us. I was so upset about that because my mam only ever came to stay to help us out and to look after us and the dogs when we needed her. She spent most of her time in Newcastle, because she’s a grandmother of 10 and they all want her up there. When she was down south she didn’t even live with us properly either, because she always stayed in the flat on the side of the house.
I hated that she’d been wrongly accused in the past, and I hated that she’d been dragged into this latest drama too. I lodged my libel case at the High Court, suing IPC Media, the publishers of Now magazine. The magazine responded by standing by Harvey and their story, and saying: ‘The article is not defamatory and was published in good faith – we will strongly defend it.’
My mother was sent an email from my lawyers, with an attached letter that she had to print off and sign, to say she had never had any email contact with Harvey. She went straight to the post office and paid £6 to have it delivered the next day, but when she got home she realised she’d made a mistake.
‘Eee, I’m sorry Cheryl, you’ll never guess what I’ve done. I’ve printed off the email and signed that, instead of the attachment.’
That said it all. It was perfect, really, because it showed what an utter load of nonsense this all was. My mother wasn’t even technically minded enough to print off an attached letter, let alone get involved in sending emails about some secret affair I was meant to be having.
‘You know what,’ I said to Garry, when I put the phone down to my mam. ‘That’s it. I’m sick of people writing lies about me. I’m not only suing, I’m going to do my book. Bring it on!’
I had offers from publishers on the table to write my autobiography, and now I knew for certain it was the right time for me to do it. The lies and the speculation had to stop. All that media scrutiny had nearly turned me crazy, and there was no way in the world I was going back there again. I was in a happy place now, and I was not going back into the darkness.
I opened my laptop and started work on this book, right there and then. I was ready to tell my story exactly how it is, straight from my heart.
I hope you have enjoyed reading it.
Epilogue
‘It’s being broadcast to two billion people,’ I heard someone say.
I was due to perform a duet with Gary Barlow at the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee concert, and I had been quite calm until this moment.
‘Did I hear that right? Two billion people?’
It was true, and suddenly I went from enjoying the vibe backstage to buzzing with nervous energy.
When Gary and I actually stepped out on the stage in front of Buckingham Palace I felt completely overwhelmed. The royal family was sitting over to my left and the Mall was swaying with hundreds of thousands of people. I’d literally never seen anything like it, and I tried to just take it in for a moment.
‘Wow,’ I thought. ‘It doesn’t get any bigger than this.’ If ever I needed proof that dreams can come true, here it was, stretched out for miles in front of me.
Gary and I sang Lady Antebellum’s ‘Need You Now’, which was a song we had originally planned to perform as a surprise for Children in Need in November 2011, but I’d had to pull out because I was poorly and lost my voice.
‘We should do it for the Jubilee instead,’ Gary had said.
‘That’s a good idea.’ It was that casual and easy to arrange that I don’t think the magnitude of the occasion really hit me, until I was there, being watched by the biggest audience of my life.
At the end of the concert all the performers were lined up on stage before the Queen and Prince Charles were brought out, and it was pure chance that I happened to be standing right behind Her Majesty as Prince Charles made his speech. It was a moment I will never, ever forget. I knew my family would all be watching, filled with pride, and that meant everything to me.
The party in Buckingham Palace afterwards was incredible. Just being inside the palace on such an occasion was an honour, and everywhere I turned I saw amazing artists, people I’d admired for years. I looked at Tom Jones, Stevie Wonder, Sir Paul McCartney and Elton John and thought: ‘What is my life all about? Music!’
Just when I was thinking the day couldn’t get any more incredible, Prince William and Kate came over to me for a chat.
‘Did you know you’ve got a bit of competition?’ Wills said with a cheeky look in his eye.
‘From who?’
Wills looked at Kate and they both started laughing before Kate confessed that she dressed up as me on her hen night, in a body suit and split trousers, and sang ‘Fight For This Love’. She even learned the dance routine and was step perfect by all accounts, as her sister Pippa and brother James also came over and told me all about it.
‘Well, I’m very flattered’ I said. I could just imagine her, and it was so surreal.
Prince Harry came over to say hello, and we had a laugh about the daft stories that had appeared about us recently. It was my fault. I’d made a joke in a magazine that I’d had a dream about marrying him, which had been blown up out of all proportion.
‘I was only joking,’ I reassured Harry.
‘I found it all very funny,’ he replied. ‘At least you can now put the record straight. I hear you’re writing a book. Whose should I buy – yours or Simon’s?’
I smiled. ‘If you want the truth – mine, of course.’
As I come to the end of my book I can’t describe how therapeutic and liberating it has been to tell my story. I got lost in darkness for a long time, but now I feel strong and happy again.
I turn 30 next year and I’m really looking forward to it, because I know who I am again, and what I want out of my life.
I’ve rediscovered my first love and passion – music – and I feel excited and inspired by it. Having my single, ‘Call My Name’, go to number one in June, becoming the fastest-selling single of the year, was a massive moment for me. With my first two solo albums I always had critics claiming they only did well because of Simon or The X Factor, but now I’ve done it all by myself, and that makes me feel very proud.
I have never claimed to be the best vocalist in the world. I’m a performer, and putting on a show is what I enjoy most of all. That is why I started to plan my first solo tour as soon as my album, A Million Lights, came out after the single. It’s all I ever wanted, from when I was a child. I dreamed of making number one records and being up on
stage, singing and dancing and entertaining the audience, and I’m so happy to back doing what I love.
I got together with Girls Aloud several months ago, which was another high point of this year. We’ve put up with so much speculation about our three years apart, but now we’re proving that we haven’t had the fall-outs the press would like to think we have. We’ve simply grown into women, and have different lives to the ones we had as young girls. I hadn’t seen Nadine for two whole years and had only seen Sarah a few times, but when the five of us were together again it was like we’d never been apart.
By the time this book is published Girls Aloud will have recorded this year’s Children in Need single, which is also a celebration of our tenth anniversary as a group, and we’ll hopefully be working on a tour and greatest hits album. Then I think that’s it for Girls Aloud. We’ve achieved far more than any of us ever dared to dream of and, whatever happens next, I know we’ll always be in each other’s lives.
***
I feel incredibly lucky to have had 10 successful years in the music industry, with the girls and as a solo artist. Every day I wake up and I want to go to work and do the job I love, and I know that in this economic climate that is an absolute gift and a privilege.
I hope I’m lucky enough to have children one day, and I want a stable, happy home. That, and keeping going with my music and making my family proud, are my priorities now. My family are my real world; they’re not in the dream that my life becomes sometimes, and when I need a leveller I turn to them. They’ve watched me have a dream, pursue it and live it, and now having a family of my own is my next big dream.
Simon actually phoned me up in April this year and asked me if I wanted to do the American X Factor again, and I think you can guess what my answer was. It would take me away from my family and my reality, and throw me back into the craziness again. That’s not what I want right now, not at all.
My twenties have been full of the highest highs and the lowest lows, but now it’s time for me to find some balance, and my happy place.
Picture Section
This is me aged six weeks with my mam, Joan. She was twenty-four when I was born, making her a mam of four.
Here I am in 1986, coming up for three, posing with my siblings. Joe, ten, is at the back, Andrew is six and my sister Gillian is seven.
I’m three here, posing for the camera in Boots. Mam entered me for loads of ‘bonny baby’-type competitions.
Mam took me into a passport photo booth while I was still in the pink dress I’d worn in Boots. She wanted a photo for her purse.
Here I am sitting on my dad’s knee aged four. This is in our old family home on Cresswell Street in Byker, where my dad, Garry, always had music playing.
This is me aged seven and my little brother Garry, aged three, posing for my dad. He was a painter and decorator but wanted to be a photographer at the time.
This is me at home in June 1993, just before I went to the Royal Ballet’s summer school. I nearly didn’t go because Mam and Dad couldn’t afford it.
Here I’m showing off my ballet skills on a photoshoot for Gimme 5, a popular Tyne Tees children’s television programme when I was growing up.
This one was taken at home (check out the background sheet!) to be sent off to various modelling agencies I was on the books of.
I loved ballroom dancing as much as ballet for a few years. Here I’m with a girl called Amy from my dance school, smiling after we won a competition.
This is me aged eight with James Richardson, my ballroom dancing partner, after winning the Northern Counties Championship.
I took part in lots of fashion shows throughout my childhood, and this is me after winning first prize in one.
The local press always supported me. This is an article about me performing on the same bill as Ultimate Kaos, a popular boy band back then. I was thirteen.
This is me backstage with Haydon from Ultimate Kaos.
Here I am at the Royal Ballet summer school, held at White Lodge in Richmond. I’m ten, and not really enjoying myself.
Once I was well established as a performer at Metroland I started going to London to record music. Here I’m fifteen, at the home of Ricky, a musician friend.
I was a big fan of Destiny’s Child, and I wanted to be like Beyoncé. This was my attempt to try to look like her by having my hair bleached blonde.
My nephew Warren was born in 2000, when I was sixteen. I was with my sister Gillian when she gave birth, and here I am with Warren aged two.
This is one of my first ‘artist’ cards I had made for me when I was trying to make it as a singer.
Me and Dad. He could not have been prouder when I won a place on the TV show Popstars: The Rivals.
Coming close to being eliminated after singing Shania Twain’s ‘You’re Still the One’ during week two of the live shows. I was nineteen at the time.
With newly formed Girls Aloud, just after we’d won the second part of the Popstars competition by beating the boy band, One True Voice, to the Christmas number one.
This picture was taken on our ‘What Will the Neighbours Say? Live’ tour in 2005, our first ever concert tour. I was twenty-one and I loved every minute.
Ashley forgot his shorts when we went on holiday to Dubai and had to buy these, and of course the paparazzi caught us off-guard ...
Here I am with Victoria Beckham at the World Cup in Germany in 2006, enjoying supporting our men together.
Smiling with Ashley after our wedding in July 2006, with me dressed in a Roberto Cavalli gown at Wrotham Park in Hertfordshire. I was twenty-three, and felt like a princess.
At The X Factor final in December 2008, when winner Alexandra Burke got to perform with Beyoncé. This was amazing – Beyoncé is one of the people who inspired me to do what I do today.
The girls performing ‘The Promise’ at the 2009 BRIT Awards. We were all very nervous performing in front of music industry bigwigs, but we won Best British Single.
Climbing Mount Kilimanjaro for Comic Relief with Kimberley in March 2009. I had no idea what I was letting myself in for, and it was unbelievably testing.
Performing ‘Fight For This Love’ on The X Factor in 2009. The military-themed costume really caught on with the fans, who we now refer to as soldiers.
A victory for Geordies! In 2009 I got the boys category in The X Factor, and when Joe McElderry won he jumped all over with excitement.
Dancing Latin ballroom with Derek on the TV special Cheryl Cole’s Night In, December 2009. This is how we met and became really good friends.
Trying to escape LAX airport after the second revelations about Ashley in 2010. It was a terrifying experience.
Derek was photographed leaving the London Hotel in West Hollywood. He’d brought his friend’s dog to cheer me up, and we had a good laugh about this picture afterwards.
On tour with The Black Eyed Peas in May 2010. Will would sometimes perform ‘3 Words’ with me, but I never knew if he was going to appear on stage or not.
Me and my final four girls – Cher Lloyd, Katie Waissel, Rebecca Ferguson and Treyc Cohen – on The X Factor in 2010.
Simon and I joking about in our usual fashion on The X Factor judging panel. There was always a lot of banter between us, both on- and off-screen.
In February 2011 I had the honour of meeting Prince Charles at Clarence House after setting up my charity, The Cheryl Cole Foundation.
This is the FOX Upfront party to reveal the line-up of presenters and judges for The X Factor USA. I’m with Steve Jones, Nicole Scherzinger, LA Reid, Paula Abdul and Simon.
In September 2011 I went on a morale-boosting visit to Afghanistan to present a Daily Mirror Pride of Britain award. I have the greatest respect for our soldiers.
It was such an honour to perform at the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Concert in June 2012. When we all stood on the stage together after the show the atmosphere was incredible.
About the Author
CHERYL COLE is a singer, a st
yle icon and a TV star.
Rising to fame in 2002 on reality talent show Pops tars: The Rivals, Cheryl makes up one fifth of bestselling girl group Girls Aloud. Over the past ten years Girls Aloud have had 21 Top 10 singles, five platinum albums and been nominated for five BRIT Awards, winning the 2009 Award for Best British Single.
In 2009 Cheryl released her first solo record, ‘Fight For This Love’, which became the fastest-selling single of the year. She has now released three solo albums and been nominated for three solo BRIT Awards.