Cheryl: My Story (42 page)

I got
so
drunk on vodka cocktails and shots I really let my hair down, literally. At one point I walked up the staircase of the hotel trying to do a Beyoncé, dancing and swirling my hair in big circles as I climbed each stair, clinging to the balustrades. Ashley was looking at me as if I was a totally crazy person and laughing, so I heard afterwards. Will DJ-ed and I was rapping, apparently, too. Fergie sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to me, and beforehand she tried to hide the pair of us behind a curtain so it came as a surprise to the guests, but you could see two big lumps sticking through from the other side, which gave the game away. It was hilarious.

***

A lot of the evening is a huge blur to me, but I do remember that Ashley gave me a piggyback down the corridor and put me to bed in my apartment at the Sanderson Hotel in London, where the party was held. He even took my shoes off for me and tucked me in like a little girl, which he’d done a few times in the past.

Garry was staying in the same apartment as me, and we both woke up the next day with hangovers from hell. Mam appeared and chucked a parcel at me. ‘Here, underwear,’ she said, which set me and Garry off laughing. That was so typical of Mam, to deliver my birthday present without a trace of sentimentality.

‘I’m starving,’ I said to Garry. ‘I’m ordering room service.’

I must have still been drunk because I ordered practically the whole menu. We had everything from steak and chips to pizzas and sausage and mash brought up to us. Garry ate one slice of pizza and felt sick, and I fell back to sleep without eating any of it.

The next thing I remember is talking to Lily, who came to see how we were.

‘It was a fun night,’ Lily said.

‘I can’t remember half of it. What happened?’

‘Do you remember Fergie singing “Happy Birthday” to you, after you cut the cake?’

‘I had a
cake
?’

Lily looked at me in astonishment. I’d had a spectacular cake the size of a coffee table, but I had absolutely no recollection of it. Lily had to show me a photograph, but it still didn’t jog my memory.

‘My God, it must have been a good night,’ I giggled.

I didn’t feel embarrassed; I was glad I’d had such a good time. I felt like I’d taken another step forward in my healing process, because there was no way I could have enjoyed myself like that if I wasn’t well on the mend.

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.