Cheryl: My Story Read online

  I’d stopped smoking weed myself by now because I didn’t know if it was making me paranoid or not, and I knew I had to be normal so I could work out what the hell the truth was with Jason.

  One morning, not long after the crazy men had been to the door, I woke up with a very clear head and had an incredibly powerful feeling that I was about to find the proof I needed, to show Jason I was not mad, and that he was the one who had the problem.

  ‘Check his pockets.’ That’s what I thought as soon as I opened my eyes.

  I’m not like that and I have never snooped on anybody in my life, but I felt such a strong instinct that I just had to do it. Jason had gone to work and his jacket was right there in front of me. The coast was clear but I was still shaking with nerves, because I almost knew what I was going to find before I looked.

  Inside Jason’s pocket I found a yellow plastic capsule from the inside of a chocolate Kinder egg, and in the middle of it were loads of wraps of heroin. Seeing the drugs with my own two eyes changed everything, in a heartbeat. I wasn’t going to give Jason the opportunity to lie his way out of this. That would have been just too insulting, even by his standards.

  I wanted to flush the heroin down the toilet but I didn’t want to be responsible for Jason getting kneecapped by the dealers, so I opened the wraps and sprinkled the drugs all over our bed. Then I wrote Jason a Dear John, spilling my heart out onto two sides of A4 paper: ‘It’s over. I’ve lost sight of my dreams. I have to get out of this dark hole. I’m killing myself with worry.’ That’s what it was like. I left it there and went to my mam’s in floods of tears.

  Jason flipped when he got back. He came round to my mam’s like a mad person, fighting with me and screaming, telling me I was crackers and paranoid, but I said to my mam, ‘This is it, it’s over.’

  She came with me to the flat to help me get my stuff. One of the only things I owned besides my clothes was a set of jars for the tea, coffee and sugar. I’d loved buying them, enjoying setting up my first flat, but now I started emptying the contents all over the kitchen worktop. I thought I had to empty the jars before I could take them away; that’s how distraught and disturbed I was.

  Jason appeared at the door as I was tipping the sugar out, and he charged straight over to me, looking exactly like he was going to kiss me. I had no time to react before his lips were on mine, but he didn’t kiss me – he bit my mouth, hard. I had a scar on my lip from an old dog bite, and I felt it rip open.

  ‘Mam!’ I cried out as soon as I managed to pull away from him and draw breath.

  ‘He just bit me face!’

  ‘She’s cracked in the head,’ Jason said, looking my mam straight in the eye. ‘Don’t believe her. She’s mad.’

  Jason didn’t realise it, but my mam had been on her way into the kitchen just as he bit me, and she’d seen everything.

  She was looking at me in absolute horror. Blood was seeping out of my lip now and there was no denying what had gone on, yet Jason carried on looking at my mam very calmly and continued to repeat his defence. ‘She’s mad. She’s making it up.’

  It was the first time anybody had fully witnessed just how badly Jason treated me, twisting the truth and trying to make me question myself like that.

  ‘I’m getting you out of here right now, Cheryl,’ Mam said, bundling me and my belongings out of the flat as quickly as she could. She was so shocked by what she’d seen, and she couldn’t get me out of there fast enough.

  When I got back to my mam’s the sense of relief was overwhelming and immediate. Without realising it, I’d been very alone for a long time when I was living with Jason.

  Mam cuddled me and told me things would get better. It was the best feeling ever and as I cried in her arms I realised that I felt relieved to be rid of Jason – not just for myself, but for my whole family too. He’d driven a wedge between me and my family and had been a burden to everyone, although I couldn’t see that until he was finally out of my life.

  It had been my eighteenth birthday about six months earlier, and I thought about how a big group of us had gone out to a local Chinese restaurant. I really wanted it to be a special evening. I pretended it was, but I knew that Jason was out of his head the whole time. None of the family said anything but, as I looked back now with my eyes wide open, I could see their faces in a whole new light. They were all looking at Jason as if to say: ‘Are you for real?’ A weight had been lifted from all of our shoulders now. That’s how it felt, very powerfully.

  Joe was on my case straight away. He’d met his wife by this time and his life was all mapped out, which made him act the big brother even more forcefully than usual.

  ‘What are you gonna do with your life?’ he’d ask me every time I saw him. ‘You’re not doin’ anything with your singin’. Why not? You need to sort yourself out, Cheryl, because nobody else is gonna do it for you.’

  I knew he was right, but I also knew I had to get myself strong again first, both physically and mentally. My heart ached for ages, and I just needed some time for the pain to heal.

  ‘I’m gonna do it, Joe, don’t worry. I’m gonna make it.’

  I firmly believed this, even though I’d slipped so much further away from my dream than I ever had before.

  ‘I’ll get my dream back on track,’ I promised.

  4

  ‘I’m so proud of you I could pop’

  ‘I’ve seen this advert on TV for a show called Popstars: The Rivals,’ I said to our Garry one day. ‘I’m thinkin’ of applyin’.’

  ‘I thought you hated all that,’ he said, looking at me as if I’d gone crazy.

  Garry had a point. When the shows Popstars and Pop Idol had been on in recent years I’d always said I’d never go down that route.

  ‘I’d rather do it by meself,’ I remember saying cockily, several times.

  This was a new show, though, and the idea really appealed to me. Popstars: The Rivals was going to create one girl band and one boy band which would compete against each other in the race for the Christmas number one.

  ‘How cool would that be?’ I said to Garry. ‘Imagine being in a girl band and hanging out with a group of girls all the time. I’d love it. If that ad comes on again, write the number down for me …’

  Spookily, at that very second the advert flashed up on the telly. Garry and I looked at each other and screamed in surprise as we scrabbled for a pen and he wrote the number down. I phoned up straight away and asked for an application form, hardly able to believe this had all happened in the space of a few minutes.

  ‘How weird was that?’ I said to my mam afterwards.

  ‘It must have been meant to be, Cheryl. Good luck.’

  ‘Thanks, Mam. Don’t tell anyone else I’m applyin’, will ya?’

  It was about four or five months since my split from Jason and I was in a much better place. Even so, if this didn’t work out, I’d rather keep it to myself. I didn’t want anybody worrying about me all over again.

  A few weeks after leaving Jason I had started contacting old friends I’d slowly cut myself off from when I was with him. One friend, a girl from Liverpool, had asked if I fancied a waitressing job on the Tuxedo Princess, which was a floating nightclub on the Tyne. It was only about six weeks after the split when she asked me and I was still a shell of my former self, totally lacking in confidence and all skinny and washed out. I didn’t even have my job in the café any more, because Jason had got me in such a state towards the end of our relationship that I couldn’t even cope with that.

  ‘Surely you don’t want to give me a job?’ was my reaction.

  ‘I’m proud of you for getting out of that relationship,’ my Scouse friend said. ‘I believe in you.’

  She needed someone to serve shots of cocktails like ‘sex on the beach’ on the boat two nights a week, and after a bit of persuasion I agreed to give it a go. Right from the first night I could feel that it was doing me good to have to do my hair and put on a dress, and it was amazing how easy I found i
t to socialise again.

  Meeting people who were normal and pleasant and out to have fun on the boat was just so refreshing, and each time I went to work I smiled and enjoyed myself. ‘I can see the future again,’ I thought.

  That’s exactly how I was feeling in August 2002, when I received a letter inviting me to the London auditions of Popstars: The Rivals. In my application form I’d explained all about my performances at Metroland and my recording experience, and I’d attached a little passport-sized picture I’d had done in a photo booth in the shopping centre. I was quietly optimistic when I sent it off because even though I’d done nothing with my singing for a good couple of years, I had a very strong gut feeling that the audition would go well. The feeling I had was so powerful I swear it was almost spiritual, but I was determined to be very level-headed about it too, and not let my intuition rule my head. ‘I’ll just do me best,’ I told myself as I prepared to travel down to London a week or so later. ‘That’s all I can do. There’s nothing to lose.’

  I got a loan from the Provi man for £100 and took myself off to River Island, where I bought some little shoes with heels, a pair of brown trousers with a pleat down the front, a flowery top and a choker with a cross on it. As I packed I practised the song I’d chosen to sing. I was heavily into R&B and soul music, but I knew because of the title of the show I needed to sing a pure pop song, and so I chose S Club 7’s ‘Have You Ever’, because it was the pop-iest thing I knew.

  ‘If you don’t get in, you can just come home.’ That’s what I was thinking to myself as I got on the train to London.

  I was 19 years old. I was all by myself and my heart and head were full of nervous excitement the whole journey.

  When I arrived at King’s Cross I felt the old familiar tingle in my bones that I first experienced four or five years earlier on my trips to London. It was that exciting feeling that I was in this twinkly, sparkly place, where I felt sure my future lay. It was like a sixth sense; I can’t explain it any other way.

  This was exhilarating and terrifying all at the same time. That’s how I felt as I made my way to a little hotel near Wembley Stadium, close to where the auditions were being held. I was on my own, and my future was completely in my hands. Nobody was there to help me, but then again nobody was there to drag me down, either. This was all up to me, and on top of all my other emotions I felt proud of myself for being there, for pursuing what I loved. I could so easily have curled up into a ball in Newcastle, but I hadn’t, and I felt good about myself.

  I can barely remember singing my song to the producers, which was the first hurdle I had to face, because I was that nervous. I will never forget coming face to face with the three judges though: Louis Walsh, Pete Waterman and Geri Halliwell.

  I knew Louis managed Westlife and Boyzone and had been a judge on the Irish version of Popstars the year before, but that was about it. I also knew that Pete Waterman was one of the famous Stock Aitken Waterman music producers and had also been a Pop Idol judge. The person I was most daunted by, though, was Geri Halliwell, because she was so famous. I’d listened to the Spice Girls when I was growing up and had really liked them, and to be stood in front of Ginger Spice herself was really intimidating.

  ‘Breathe,’ I told myself as I took centre stage, wearing a badge with my identification number: L786. ‘And don’t forget to smile.’

  I think I only sang for about half a minute before the judges stopped me, and Louis said, ‘I wanna put her through.’

  ‘You have the most beautiful eyes and skin I think I’ve ever seen in my life,’ Pete Waterman said, which took me completely by surprise. I couldn’t remember the last time I had a compliment like that and it gave me a real boost.

  Then all three judges started saying things to me at once, asking if I was sure I wanted to be a pop star, and if I realised how much hard work it would be. Geri told me it wasn’t glamorous, and Louis said: ‘It’s early mornings, late nights and lots of bullshit.’

  I told them I wouldn’t be happy doing anything else, which was the honest truth.

  As I walked out of the room shaking, smiling and thanking them all, it felt surreal. I’d got through to the next round, and it had all happened in one crazy minute! My head was spinning and spinning. It was just so exciting. I phoned my mam straight away to tell her the good news.

  ‘That’s nice,’ she said. ‘I’ll tell our Garry. I’m just cooking his tea.’

  There was no hoo-hah, but I think that was a good thing. I needed to keep my feet on the ground and focus on the next stage of the competition. There was a whole week of singing and dancing auditions to get through next, with the aim of selecting 10 girls and 10 boys who would battle it out for a place in the boy band and the girl band.

  Looking back, that entire week is quite a blur in my head as I was a complete emotional wreck.

  I spent the whole time either on my own in my hotel room thinking about what I had to do next, or giving it my all in front of the judges. There was nothing else in my life, because nothing else mattered.

  When Louis told me I’d made the last 15 I couldn’t stop crying, but it was Geri who delivered the really big news, travelling up to Newcastle to tell me I’d got into the final 10 and would be competing in the finals, live on TV. Geri didn’t tell me quite as plainly as that, of course. As I would have to learn myself in years to come, it makes better television if you string out the moment when the big decision is revealed. It’s something I hated then and I still hate now, but Geri played the game brilliantly.

  I remember sitting in my mam’s front room listening to Geri rambling on and on for what felt like an age. I really couldn’t make head nor tail of what she was on about, and I felt absolutely terrified.

  ‘You’re in!’ she said eventually, to which I replied, ‘You shouldn’t do that. That was really horrible. You shouldn’t be allowed to do things like that to people.’

  I was so excited and wanted to tell everybody, but the news had to be kept secret until all the auditions and heats we’d gone through so far had been shown on television.

  In the meantime, I had to move down to London to share a house with the other girl finalists and prepare for the live shows. Just as I was packing my bags, the phone rang and I ran downstairs to answer it.

  It was Dolly’s daughter, and my immediate thought was that I wished I could tell her and her mam my good news before I left Newcastle.

  ‘I’m sorry Cheryl, it’s not good news.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Me mam’s died. It was the emphysema. I’m sorry to be the one to tell you.’

  I think I just stood there, gasping for air. Dolly had been like a grandmother to me, and her death devastated me all the more as I hadn’t been able to share my news with her before she passed away. I immediately wondered if I should still go down to London.

  ‘When’s the funeral?’ I whispered, although straight away I knew that I wouldn’t want to go. Funerals made me think of Lee Dac lying in his coffin, and I absolutely hated them with a passion. I also thought of the deaths of two of my own grandparents. My mam’s dad had died of drink when I was 14, and I never met my other grandfather. He died of a heart attack after playing a game of football, and actually collapsed in my father’s arms, when my dad was only 17. The first time I heard that story I sobbed my heart out, thinking how terrible that must have been for my dad, coping with that at such a young age. I imagined him crying, and ever since that day I’ve never been able to bear seeing grown men cry.

  I definitely didn’t want to go to this funeral, but I desperately didn’t want to let Dolly down either.

  ‘Next week, not sure which day yet,’ came the reply.

  I felt panicky. I had no idea what my schedule was the following week. I cried my eyes out when I came off the phone, but when I eventually dried my tears I had a very clear thought in my head.

  ‘What would Dolly want me to do?’

  ‘Get on the buckin’ train, Cheryl,’ I heard Dolly’
s voice say, and so that is what I did.

  I was told later that I was named as one of Dolly’s granddaughters at her funeral, which was very moving. Looking back, I think Dolly’s passing made me more determined than ever to succeed, not just for myself, but to make the people who loved me proud.

  In what felt like the blink of an eye, I now found myself living in a huge mansion worth millions of pounds in Weybridge, Surrey, along with nine other girls, including Nadine Coyle and Sarah Harding and, eventually, Nicola Roberts and Kimberley Walsh. The house absolutely amazed me. I’d never even stayed in a nice hotel before, let alone a place like this. Everything was shiny and luxurious and there was even a swimming pool, which made it seem even more grand.

  ‘This is just mad!’ Nicola said when she moved in a little while after me.

  I clicked with Nicola straight away. I’ve always liked Scousers because they tend to have the same mentality and sense of humour as Geordies, and I soon found out that Nicola was from a similar background to me too. We laughed our heads off about how different this house was to what we were used to back home in Newcastle and Liverpool.

  Nicola was very striking and I thought her long red hair was absolutely stunning, but she was painfully shy and right from the start I felt very protective towards her. She was only 16 and I wanted to take care of her, like she was my little sister. Nicola had actually been sent home from the competition earlier on but was given a second chance after another girl decided to pull out at the last minute.

  I would have found that very stressful, but despite the set-back and her shyness, Nicola actually had an amazing amount of self-confidence, because she knew she was a good singer.

  ‘I know I’ll get through,’ she’d say every week.