Cheryl: My Story (28 page)

‘You’re nuts,’ Simon said once it had all been agreed, and for once I couldn’t argue with him.

It was also Simon’s fiftieth birthday party around this time.

Unfortunately Ashley couldn’t make it, as he was busy with Chelsea, so I was going on my own. I had no clue what to expect. Sir Philip Green had organised the party at Wrotham Park, where Ashley and I had our wedding, but when I turned up I didn’t recognise the place at all. There was an enormous image of Simon projected onto the front of the building, and inside the Simon theme continued, everywhere. The waiters wore Simon masks, the toilets had Simon pictures on the walls, and even the wallpaper had Simon’s face on it, complete with devil’s horns.

‘You’re sitting next to me,’ Simon beamed, steering me to the top table. His mother was on his other side, and Sir Philip and his wife and daughter, Kate Moss and her boyfriend Jamie, plus Naomi Campbell were also on our table. I’d met some of them before and had walked in a fashion show for Naomi once, but I didn’t
know
them, and I just sat there quietly, taking it all in.

We were served soup that had Simon written in pasta in the bottom of the bowl, and a woman on the stage did a reverse strip, starting out naked and ending up fully clothed after pulling shoes out of her Afro and underwear from God knows where. It was totally surreal, and so far from my normality I felt quite unsettled. ‘I’m in deeper than I ever knew existed,’ I thought, looking around the room. This was a level of wealth and celebrity I wasn’t even aware of.

‘This is crazy,’ I said to Simon.

‘I know, tell me about it,’ he laughed.

I sat there looking at people like Kevin Spacey, David Hasselhoff and Ozzy Osbourne, thinking to myself that they could have been in a film, because I felt so disconnected from them. It was so weird to be surrounded by so many famous faces, but I wasn’t starstruck by them at all, it was just so weird. The decadence and the craziness was simply out of this world and so I sat there, at the head of this room, just watching it all unfold and thinking how strange it all felt.

I’d bought Simon a diamond watch from Harrods as a thank-you gift at the end of the last series of
The X Factor
, but for his birthday I decided to make a bit of a different statement. He laughed his head off when he saw the present. It was a grey T-shirt, a teeth-whitening kit, some fake tan, a can of hairspray and a mirror with a picture of Simon’s head stuck to it. I also gave him a signed picture of me, which was a dig at the fact he’d given me a Simon Cowell calendar the previous Christmas.

‘The difference is,’ I teased. ‘You were serious, and I’m having a laugh.’

‘You know what, I can’t always figure you out, but that’s what I love about you, Cheryl,’ he grinned.

A couple of weeks later Simon was back in classic, arrogant mode.

‘You know you’ve done this to yourself, don’t you?’

He was on the phone the night before I was performing ‘Fight For This Love’ on
The X Factor
.

‘Why are you saying this to me now? What do you mean?’

‘I mean you’ve only got yourself to blame. Good luck.’

I think Simon was nervous for me, and for himself and the reputation of the show, and that was his way of dealing with it. Everybody was nervous, in fact. Ashley had started saying to me, ‘Are you sure you want to go through with this, babe?’ and my mam, Nicola and Kimberley, Sundraj and Hillary were all phoning me, wishing me luck and crossing their fingers.

It was a big risk; I knew that. It was my first ever performance without the girls, it was my first solo single, and it was in front of millions. My acts were watching, and if I couldn’t pull it off, how could I expect them to?

When the advert break came on, which was my cue to run from my seat at the judge’s table and get into my costume, I felt sick to my stomach with nerves. It felt like the moment when I’d watched Ashley take that penalty at the World Cup and I imagined the whole country was holding their breath at the same time as me.

I was getting into the costume now, feeling my heart thud in my chest as I pulled on my red and black military cap and tunic and split harem pants. Even the lady who normally counts down calmly for the contestants was nervous, because I could hear her throat tightening as she rasped: ‘Ten … nine … eight …’

All my boys were wishing me well, and as I went on stage I had this sudden panic about which of them might be going home tonight. Oh my God, I didn’t want to lose any of them! I’d have to deal with that later, because now the spotlights were on me, and I was suddenly right in the zone, singing and dancing and feeling every word of the song. I really had to deliver.

It felt like I’d been on the stage for seconds rather than minutes when I saw that Simon and Dannii were standing up and clapping. ‘This is going to really pain me to have to say this,’ Simon said, smiling, ‘But
that
was incredible! Unfortunately, you’re going to be number one next week.’

I was euphoric. I’d not only delivered, but I’d thoroughly enjoyed myself, and I just knew this was one of those events in my life where my dad was going to tell me afterwards: ‘Cheryl, I was so proud I could pop.’

Ashley came to the studio, which he didn’t normally do as he couldn’t stand the chaos and drama of it all. ‘You are nuts!’ he said when it was all over. ‘What are you doing?’

‘I swear I’ve been shaking the whole night,’ I said. ‘I don’t know what I was thinking putting myself through that, but I’m glad I did. I’m absolutely buzzing now.’ Nicola, Kimberley and Sarah were there too, which was amazing.

Whitney Houston had been on after me but I’d been in such a state I’d not been able to enjoy watching her. She actually fell down a step and the strap on her bra snapped, but I didn’t take all that in until I got home and watched a recording of the show that Ashley had set up.

Watching Whitney’s performance just made the whole evening seem even more insane, because she was such a legend and yet it was only just sinking in that we’d shared the same stage.

‘Fight For This Love’ became the fastest-selling single of the year and went to number one in 10 countries. It felt like my life just couldn’t get any better, but I had two more amazing nights in store that really made 2009 end on a high.

In the middle of December I hosted a one-off special on ITV called
Cheryl Cole’s Night In
. I got to pick the guests and what I performed, and I invited Rihanna, plus Alexandra Burke, Will.i.am, Will Young and Snow Patrol onto the show. It was an incredible opportunity to bring together everyone I loved in the music world at that point in time.

I chose to perform my second single, ‘3 Words’, with Will.i.am, plus ‘Fight For This Love’ and ‘Parachute’, which was to be my third single from the album. As soon as I heard ‘Parachute’, I knew I wanted to dance the Argentine tango on the video, and I had a stroke of luck because Derek Hough, my favourite dancer from
Dancing with the Stars
, agreed to choreograph the video, and he was also going to dance with me on this show.

I knew Derek was amazing at the tango and it seemed meant to be that we worked together. It came about because Hillary knows Bruno Tonioli, one of the judges on
Dancing with the Stars
. Bruno used to choreograph Hillary’s old group Bananarama, and of course he knew Derek through
Dancing with the Stars
.

‘We’ve had a word about “Parachute” and Derek’s really excited to work with you,’ Hillary told me, after explaining the connection.

‘Wow, that’s
amazing
,’ I said.

I knew Derek was a world champion of Latin and ballroom, and I was really excited to work with him too.

Ashley thought it was really funny that I’d gone on about Derek for ages and suddenly he wasn’t just a dancer I admired from afar on the TV, he was in London, working on
my
routine.

‘You know what, you’re lucky,’ Ashley told me.

‘I know,’ I said, and I really felt it, on a personal as well as a career level.

Our marriage troubles were behind us now, that’s how it felt. I would never be able to forget about the cheating and the allegations, but I could feel the dark days slipping deeper and deeper into our history, and I was looking forward all the time, not back. There was still a lot of speculation about us as a couple, especially if I didn’t wear my wedding ring, and so at the beginning of November I got Sundraj to put a picture on Twitter of me with the ring on my finger, along with the message: ‘3 Words: Diamonds are Forever’. It was just a cheeky, spur-of-the-moment thing, something I felt like doing to put a stop to all the rumours about the state of our marriage. It felt right to do it, because I really did think Ashley and I were back together for good.

I hadn’t done any ballroom dancing since I was a child, but as soon as I started rehearsals with Derek, I felt super comfortable. He was so talented and enthusiastic it would have been impossible not to be inspired by him. I loved the Latin paso doble-type routine he devised for us and I got to wear a gorgeous flamenco-style dress. I felt like a proper ballroom dancer in his arms, and I thoroughly enjoyed the whole evening, from start to finish. It was a total buzz, and I could hardly believe how lucky I was to have the chance to do something so special.

The night after the TV show was aired, it was the
X Factor
final. It was a crazy, crazy night and the whole atmosphere was much more chaotic than usual behind the scenes. I lit scented candles in my dressing room to try to calm myself down, but they didn’t help. It felt like there was actually nervous energy trickling out of the walls. In the corridors it was a hectic blur of production staff, cameras and contestants running around and flapping. I tried having a glass of wine and a cigarette, but they didn’t help either and my nerves were getting worse and worse.

I desperately wanted Joe to win. He was such a genuinely nice lad, and we’d formed a real bond. The innuendos in the press that he fancied me or we were having some sort of fling were ridiculously far off the mark. Joe had already confided to me that he was gay, and he was howling laughing about those rumours. Ashley didn’t find it quite so funny; in fact he was disgusted. ‘It just proves what crap they write. You’re married, he’s gay. It’s sick.’ I wasn’t very amused either, but I shrugged it off. I had too much going on to let myself get wound up about something so stupid.

When decision time finally came, I could hardly believe I was on that stage again, breathless with anticipation, just as I had been with Alexandra the year before. I was absolutely
ecstatic
when Joe’s name was called, and this time I didn’t have to scoop the winner up off the floor, because Joe picked
me
up and spun me around. I could almost hear the Geordie voices in the air. I knew people were holding ‘Joe’ parties to support him all over South Shields, and this felt like a victory for the whole of the North East. I honestly could not have felt more proud.

After the show I got a message from Simon to say there was someone in his dressing room he wanted me to meet. I walked in and the scene was mental. There were women partying everywhere, and Simon was grinning like the Cheshire Cat.

‘Cheryl! Say hello to Prince Harry,’ he said, wafting his arms towards the ground. I looked over, and to my astonishment Prince Harry was lying on the dressing room floor, with his top buttons undone, relaxing with a glass of wine in one hand and a cigarette in the other. His girlfriend Chelsy was there too.

‘Hi! How are you?’ Harry said, grinning at me.

‘I’m good, thanks,’ I smiled. He just looked like a typical young lad, chilling out at a party, and he didn’t even get up off the floor when we started to chat.

I knew Harry had said something in the past about being a fan of mine, and we had a little laugh about that. Then we talked about whether the press knew he was coming to the show this weekend. Harry didn’t seem to care one way or the other. He told me that he and Chelsy had actually sat in the audience, and he said he probably didn’t get scrutinised as much as me.

‘I don’t know how you cope with it,’ he said, which was completely surreal coming from such a high-profile member of our royal family.

I could hear Simon laughing loudly, and afterwards he congratulated me on Joe’s win.

‘I have to hand it to you, you are incredible,’ he said. ‘If I knew what made you so special, I would literally bottle it and sell it.’

It was an enormous compliment, but as the words came out of Simon’s mouth I was already wondering how I was going to break it to him that I was going to be focusing on my solo career and babies next year.

My album had been out for two months by now, and against the odds it was doing well. It debuted at number one and turned platinum in the November, which was way beyond my expectations. I was finally starting to believe in myself as a solo artist and I was picturing a future in which I had lots of children, and could slot studio time around my family life. That was my idea of a perfect world.

‘Parachute’ was to be the final single released off the album, and I shot the video with Derek in the middle of January 2010, at the historic Eltham Palace in south-east London. We worked for 19 hours, and just before the very last shot was taken the fire alarm went off and we had to evacuate the building. Derek never complained; in fact he helped keep everybody’s spirits up with all his energy and enthusiasm. It was contagious, and I remember saying to Ashley afterwards, ‘Derek is one of those people who makes the day more enjoyable,’ because that was the truth. Derek and I agreed to keep in touch afterwards, and I said I’d call him when I was next in LA, where he lives. At the time I had absolutely no idea how soon that would be and I could never, ever have guessed how important Derek’s friendship was about to become to me.