Cheryl Cole: Her Story - the Unauthorized Biography (22 page)

She went on to say that when she had read Aimee’s allegation she felt like she’d been punched. ‘Obviously I felt sick to the stomach. What woman and wife wouldn’t? And to be honest I felt humiliated and crushed that this girl was saying these things and people were believing it. I only told my mum. I adore the girls from the band but I hadn’t even told them. It was something that Ashley and I had to get through together.’

She explained why she was planning to stick with Ashley: ‘We love each other, I adore Ashley and we spent time talking about things. I’m still hurt and angry but we’ve been working things through since December and we’re now hoping to move forward and rebuild our relationship …’

Unfortunately, things got worse. On the same day the
News of the World
hit the stands, rival newspapers ran more kiss-and-tells from glamour girls Brooke Healy and Coralie Robinson, who claimed they too had slept with Ashley and had been paid off by his agent. Worse still, it was then alleged that Ashley’s agent had given Aimee money for an abortion when she thought she might be pregnant following their encounter.

These new developments drove Cheryl crazy. Now she really didn’t know what to think. Were these girls just opportunists, cashing in on his current notoriety? Or had Ashley been fooling around behind her back all this time? Could she believe her husband anymore?

She was devastated. How could he have done this to her? How could he have put her through this? What could she believe
anymore? Could she just forgive and forget? She’d always said she would leave him if he cheated, but was she strong enough to do it now?

Cheryl tried to deal with it in the best way she could by throwing herself into her work. She joined the girls at a location in London to shoot the promo for ‘Can’t Speak French’. The shoot was a sombre affair with the crew tiptoeing around Cheryl, who hardly said a word all day and kept herself to herself. The rest of the girls would take turns to sit with her, and make sure she was all right and give her warm, reassuring hugs. Sometimes, she’d dash off set and sob alone. It was clear that it was all beginning to get to her.

After the shoot wrapped, Cheryl made a decision. She needed some time alone. She couldn’t be around Ashley right now. She needed some time to think. He had risked destroying their marriage and the last thing she wanted to do was to see him. So on the advice of her management, she decided that the best thing to do was not only to move out of their Oxshott mansion, but to get out of the country and away from it all, so she could have some space to think about what to do next.

Of course, she didn’t want to go away on her own, so she asked Nicola and Kimberley to join her on a break in Thailand. That was far enough away from the UK for them to avoid seeing any more lurid headlines. When they got there, the girls booked themselves into a £2,000-a-night villa. It was reported by the
Sun
that a holidaymaker supposedly overhead Cheryl saying that she thought Ashley was ‘damaged goods’ and that she knew something was wrong when she confronted him about some woman and he made up some excuse rather than denying it outright.

The stress of the situation was getting to her but her bandmates helped her get through it. Later, Nicola Roberts would tell
OK!
magazine about their time in Thailand. ‘We had an amazing time, it was so relaxing. We had such a laugh… When we were there, we ordered loads of cheesecakes. And then when they came we were so full up from our main meal, we couldn’t eat them.’

After Thailand, Cheryl and the girls headed to LA, where Cheryl was set to film the second half of her documentary for
Passions.
Her challenge was to become a street dancer, and this time round she would be auditioning for a spot in the video for Will.I.Am’s aptly titled single ‘Heartbreaker’.

When they arrived at LAX airport the girls were horrified to discover that their car hadn’t turned up and they found themselves surrounded by up to fifty paparazzi snapping at them. Some foolhardy shutterbugs threw questions at Cheryl such as, ‘Have you forgiven Ashley?’, to which she’d cut them dead with a ‘You’re hilarious, you are. You should be a comedian’ or ‘Do you have a wife? No, I don’t suppose you do looking like that!’ But, like a trouper, she muddled through, even stopping to pose with a little child for a photograph.

The paps clung to her like leeches for the duration of her stay there, chasing her down Sunset Strip one minute, following her to the Villa nightclub the next, where the girls partied the night away. ‘LA was wild, and the three of us had a brilliant time out there,’ Nicola said. ‘We hadn’t been out like that for a long time and it was really good. But there were so many paparazzi there that it didn’t feel like a holiday.’

The girls about town even attracted the attention of some fellow celebrities during their stay in LA. When they spent an evening at the trendy Mondrian Hotel, they were chatted
up by US TV star Will Luke and his pal Kenny Rufus, who were filming their own reality show called
Parking Lot Pimps.
According to Will, he and Kenny saw Cheryl standing by the reception desk sobbing.

‘She was inconsolable and looked so sad I had to see if she was OK,’ he told the
News of the World.
‘We found out she and her friends were in some band called Girls Aloud but none of us had ever heard of them. We just thought they were very cute girls who were very drunk. We all got chatting and when Nicola asked if we wanted to go up to Cheryl’s room I just looked at Kenny and said, “Let’s roll with it.”’

Cheryl and her hairdresser, Lisa Laudat, supposedly went upstairs first and Will, Kenny and their camera crew followed with Nicola and Kimberley. When they got to the room, Lisa opened the door and, behind her, Will could see Cheryl sitting on the bed crying. He quoted Psalm 30 Verse 5 from the Bible: ‘Weeping may endure for the night but joy comes in the morning.’

Will told the
News of the World
that Lisa checked with Cheryl if it was okay to let the boys in. She wiped her tears and agreed. Inside, Will asked Cheryl what was wrong and Lisa explained what had happened back home in the UK. Will tried to reassure Cheryl that everything would be all right and encouraged her to have a good time. He even tried to get her to join him at church the next day.

‘I was trying to get her to smile and it seemed to work,’ Will explained. As the night progressed, Cheryl appeared to relax and occasionally threw her arms around Will and told him and Kenny, ‘When you come [to England] you better tell us you’re there because we can show you a good night out.’

Will said Cheryl kept telling him, ‘You make me feel so good. You made me feel much better,’ and she told him she loved his bald head and kissed it twice. He said he felt like the luckiest man alive. The party ended around 4 a.m. when Lisa told the boys that the girls needed to get some sleep.

Once Cheryl had finished filming her scenes for
The Passions of Girls Aloud
, and, thanks to that show, having danced in the video to Will.I.Am’s single ‘Heartbreaker’, she and the girls flew back to London to attend the 2008 BRIT Awards at Earls Court arena on 20 February. It would be her first public appearance since the news had broken about Ashley’s alleged infidelity.

But before she hit the red carpet, it was reported that Cheryl met with Ashley for a showdown in her hotel room at the Royal Gardens Hotel in Kensington, West London. According to the
Daily Mail
their hour-long meeting was tense and Cheryl found it hard to look Ashley in the eye without dissolving into tears. But even though Ashley had pleaded for forgiveness, Cheryl knew she wasn’t ready to wipe the slate clean just yet. She was still hurting inside and there was no way she could just forgive and forget. There was still a lot of work Ashley would have to do if he wanted to win back her heart and, more importantly, her trust.

That evening, Cheryl arrived at the BRITs with bandmates Sarah Harding, Nicola Roberts and Kimberley Walsh. Only Nadine Coyle was a no-show, as she’d missed her flight from LA after discovering she’d mislaid her passport, fuelling yet more conspiracy theories that she was about to quit the band.

As she posed for pictures on the red carpet at the BRITs, Cheryl dazzled in a canary-yellow mini-dress and looked strong and determined, showing no signs of the heartache
she was suffering inside. After the show, she headed off to the Universal party with the girls for a few drinks but left shortly afterwards, preferring to spend some time alone with her thoughts.

Soon after, strong rumours emerged that Cheryl had taken Ashley back, though nothing was officially confirmed. As the nation continued to lap up the rumours, Cheryl’s friends rallied round her and offered their sympathy. Pop singer Jamelia, who had been a guest at Cheryl and Ashley’s wedding, said she knew what Cheryl was going through. ‘It’s devastating for them,’ she told
Fabulous
magazine, ‘and I feel for her because I’ve been through that hell. There is a sleazy, seedy side to the football industry that’s hard to deal with. I just hope Cheryl gets through it okay.’

When rumours reached the tabloids that Cheryl had in fact taken Ashley back, Lizzie Cundy, wife of Chelsea footballer Jason, and friend of the Coles, was thrilled with their decision. She told
OK!
magazine: ‘I couldn’t be happier. Ashley has admitted what he got up to, and I bet there’s no one in the world who feels worse than him right now. He’s been a silly boy and he knows it! I wouldn’t be surprised now if they start that family they have wanted for so long.’

Lizzie also said that she thought all marriages have ups and downs and that Cheryl and Ashley shouldn’t let Aimee Walton ruin their relationship, as it was so clear that Ashley loved Cheryl. Lizzie, who is friends with many of the WAGs, also theorized about why she thought so many footballers ended up falling foul of their wives, saying: ‘The main problem these days is that these young footballers earn so much, they think they can get away with anything. And it doesn’t help that these
girls target footballers and sell these stories and ruin lives and break up relationships.’

There was a positive to be found in all of this, however, as it seemed that applying herself to her singing through these hard times was really paying off for Cheryl. In March 2008, it emerged that, during her time in LA in February, Cheryl had not only appeared in the video for Will.I.Am’s ‘Heartbreaker’, she had also been invited to re-record the track with Will.I.Am, featuring her on backing vocals.

When she appeared on
The Graham Norton Show
with Will.I.Am, she gave an excellent and convincing performance. Will.I.Am reckoned that the song was a good way for Cheryl to exorcize some of her anger, and was quoted in the
Daily Star
as saying: ‘On the record she’s calling me a heartbreaker and she says “effing jerk”. Every time she says that she’s really letting off some anger. When Cheryl came to LA she said: “I love this song, I’m going through a lot right now, I could really relate to this.”’

A little while later, Cheryl and the girls were back at work, shooting a commercial for new chocolate bar KitKat Senses. The ad was shot on one of the coldest nights of the year on the steps of University College, London, and the poor girls were forced to wear the flimsiest dresses they’d had to wear in a long time. But, having been paid a six-figure sum for the campaign, they managed to pull through.

For the interviews that tied in with the campaign in March, Cheryl’s management team laid down some ground rules to all publications that their journalists were not permitted to ask anything about Ashley or what had been happening over the past few months. If they broke the rules, then the interview was over. But that didn’t mean the public weren’t given an insight
into how life was for Cheryl at that time. In an interview with the
Mirror
newspaper, Cheryl admitted that her four bandmates were helping her to survive.

‘I often think to myself, if I’m having a sad moment or an angry moment, if I didn’t have these four in my life it would be worthless. Everyone’s here to help each other. We stabilize each other. Whatever any of us is going through, bad or good, we have each other.’

In the same interview, Kimberley spoke about the special relationship she shared with the girls. ‘We’ve been together so much we’re like sisters – and you know what you’re like about your sisters. We’re very protective of each other. We can say stuff about each other, but no one else can.’

Cheryl also showed signs that she was on the road to recovery and joked on Newcastle’s Metro Radio station that she had the hots for Ashley’s former boss, ex-Chelsea manager José Mourinho. ‘He’s cool. I fancy him because he’s dead cocky and arrogant. I’ve only ever seen him from a distance though. It’s a secret crush… maybe not any more!’ She also let slip that her baby plans were back in her mind again. ‘I’ve been broody since I was about sixteen. I’d love to have a big family.’

When the band kicked off their
Tangled Up
UK tour in Belfast in May, Cheryl dedicated the band’s track ‘I’ll Stand By You’ to ‘anyone who is going through a hard time at the moment’. The audience gave her an extremely warm reception.

While Ashley and Cheryl still hadn’t been seen in public together, word got around that things were slowly getting back to rights between the two. When the girls reached Birmingham, Ashley turned up backstage with Cheryl’s mum Joan. Speaking to
Hello!
magazine, Cheryl revealed that
Ashley had sent her some flowers and a bunch of balloons, but had spoilt the surprise by sending her a text beforehand to ask her if the flowers had arrived. ‘He blew the surprise,’ she said, warmly. ‘He didn’t really think that through, did he? Still, they are really beautiful.’

It would only be a matter of time before the nation would know for sure that Cheryl and Ashley’s marriage was back on track. And it wasn’t just her personal life that was looking brighter: Cheryl was about to be offered an opportunity that would change her life and take her back to where her journey with Girls Aloud had begun. Only this time,
she
would be calling the shots.