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The surreal encounter thatmakes me wonder why Cheryl is so keen to make a pop comeback

By Katie Hind SHOWBUSINESS EDITOR

SOMETHING was seriously troubling Cheryl Tweedy when I bumped into her in a London nightclub loo on a cold Sunday night back in the winter of 2005. She didn’t mince her words, explaining to me that she was upset by widespread speculation that she’d had a boob-job. Distressed to say the very least, she scolded me for working for the newspaper that had first claimed she had undergone the surgery.

As her protestations continued, Cheryl, then just 22, whipped up her low-cut top and exhorted me to examine her breasts – determined to prove her point.

‘People always say I’ve had a boob-job. Well, I haven’t. Look. See, there are no scars,’ she insisted. ‘Touch them, touch them,’ she implored, as a £150,0000 heartshaped, yellow diamond engagement ring dazzled on her left hand.

Just as I thought things couldn’t get any more surreal, Cheryl spotted a well-known glamour model walking past.

Clearly unimpressed, she railed: ‘I hate those sl**s. What do they do apart from try and steal my boyfriend? She tried to steal my boyfriend,’ pointing at the blonde as she dashed into a cubicle at the Attica nightclub.

Cheryl was referring to her fiance Ashley Cole, the then England footballer who she would go on to marry eight months later.

Despite her band, Girls Aloud, already having had nine Top 10 hits, including two No1s, the star admitted she was struggling with fame and that untrue stories were published about her.

So why, after such a bruising experience – which ended with a messy divorce from Cole and two subsequent failed relationships – is Cheryl throwing herself back on n to the celebrity circuit?

ON FRIDAY, amid much social media fanfare, a BBC Sounds podcast exploring R&B music – and presented by Cheryl – was launched. Since her days with Girls Aloud, the showbusiness world has become much poisoned by fake news, internet trolling and petty jealousies.

As a result, the idea that a white singer from Newcastle should be the face of a 12-part series about songs associated with post-war African-American music, has resulted in Cheryl being trolled on social media.

Apart from the usual noxious and unmer- - ited offensive comments, serious music c industry names have criticised her choice e as presenter, arguing that the podcast t should be hosted by a black person.

Some have branded it as ‘black talent t being pushed to the side and ignored’. It has also been pointed out that Cheryl was fined £3,000 for punching a black toilet t attendant in a nightclub in 2003 – although the court ruled it was not a racist attack.

As well as the podcast, Cheryl is performing as a solo artist once again. She has also launched her own multi-vitamin range to her 3.5million Instagram followers.

All of this seems surprising for a woman who has struggled with fame.

After all, she doesn’t need the money. Her accounts last year showed that she received £2million in royalties from her previous hits, despite not working.

She has been bringing up her four-year-old son Bear in a £3.7million gated mansion in the Buckinghamshire village of Chalfont St

Giles. The 38-year-old is estranged from Bear’s father, former One Direction star Liam Payne, but I’m told that Liam, who has an estimated £50million fortune, is generous with maintenance payments.

Cheryl’s comeback is all the more poignant considering that earlier this month her former Girls Aloud bandmate Sarah Harding died from breast cancer, aged just 39.

Her death happened hours after Cheryl headlined the Mighty Hoopla festival in Brockwell Park, South London, in preparation for a planned appearance last night at a Birmingham Pride event (she pulled out on Friday). Organisers of the London festival hyped up her comeback: ‘Having risen to fame in one of biggest girl groups of the 21st Century, Cheryl has since gone on to release five No1 singles in the UK – the first British female solo artist to achieve this feat.’

At the height of her fame, Cheryl was a judge on ITV’s X Factor, when the series dominated weekend TV with 16 million viewers. Hyperbolically, some even described her as a national treasure in the mould of Vera Lynn.

Although Cheryl left X Factor in 2016, she returned to the show to promote her song Love Made Me

Do It, dressed in a black body-suit and thigh-high boots.

Her routine – cavorting on the floor before pausing mid-song to lick her tattooed hand – was duly ridiculed on social media.

She responded to what she called ‘shocking abuse’ by issuing a long statement. She said: ‘Having spent 16 years in the public eye, I have always been accepting of people’s opinions. Me personally, my music and performances are never going to be for everyone. And that’s OK.

‘I let a lot of things lie but the sheer level of unbalanced negativity towards me has been quite frankly shocking.

‘This level of relentless abuse should not be tolerated in any walk of life.’

Like so many celebrities, there is a paradox between her lust for fame and her struggle to deal with the dark side of celebrity.

She has often complained about the pitfalls of fame and her £10million fortune. And, in particular, as a high-profile woman, she has been the unfair victim of online trolls – a phenomenon which, sadly, just gets worse.

That said, Cheryl undoubtedly misses the limelight and is now older and wiser – thus more able to deal with any criticism.

Her son will soon be going to school, and like many mothers, perhaps the star feels it’s time to resurrect her career.

As a musician, she must believe there is unfinished business – and

She has often complained about the pitfalls of fame but she undoubtedly misses the limelight

may even have been inspired to relaunch herself in order to keep Sarah Harding’s memory alive.

Like Cheryl and the tragic Love Island host Caroline Flack, who took her own life at the age of 40, Harding was deeply troubled by fame.

In her book Hear Me Out, Harding admitted using cocaine to ‘numb the pain’ of the dark side of celebrity – the parts that the public don’t get to see.

‘I was on a treadmill of booze, sleeping pills and drugs,’ she wrote.

Despite being so often the belle of the ball – as I witnessed myself on many occasions – one of Harding’s ex-boyfriends once told me that he desperately wished he could make her happy. He couldn’t, and their romance ended.

Cheryl’s love life has been equally troubled. When she first started dating Ashley Cole, the glamorous pair were compared to the Beckhams. I remember her publicist calling me to share the news of Cheryl’s new romance. Cheryl was besotted, describing the footballer as the love of her life, and she spoke excitedly about having children.

Their ‘fairytale wedding’ took place in 2006 – she arrived in a horsedrawn carriage wearing an ivory Duchesse satin dress by Italian designer Roberto Cavalli.

The couple pocketed £1million as the wedding photographs appeared across more than 30 pages of OK! magazine. But the marriage collapsed amid Cole’s philandering.

Although she kept her ‘Cole’ surname, a shell-shocked Cheryl suddenly changed.

She stopped going out. She stopped speaking to the Press. Her glorious girl-next-door smile and Geordie bonhomie were no longer.

Once Cheryl was the first woman to dash over for a hug at a celebrity event. But when I saw her at the Pride Of Britain awards in 2011, there was just a little wave across

the room. There was a procession of ne’er-do-well boyfriends. After a whirlwind romance in 2014, she married French restaurateur JeanBernard Fernandez-Versini, who promised her a fashionable Parisian lifestyle. But his riches weren’t quite as he claimed.

Cheryl, who had taken his surname, was granted a divorce at a 14-second hearing after she blamed Jean-Bernard’s ‘unreasonable behaviour’ for her dramatic weight loss.

Her smile briefly returned when she started dating Liam Payne – a man ten years her junior – but that relationship folded after she gave birth to their child.

She blamed Payne’s ambition to carve his own solo singing career, which meant he was often absent from home for long periods.

It was at this point that Cheryl decided to go full circle and legally changed her name back to Tweedy.

Of course, it was as Cheryl Tweedy that the rollercoaster journey of fame started.

AS A nine-year-old from a heroin-ridden estate in Heaton, Newcastle, she had been chosen to take part in a trial for the Royal Ballet School and then saw her singing career take off after a successful audition on the TV talent show Popstars: The Rivals in 2002.

Her career reached its apogee as the queen of Saturday night TV, feted by fans alongside fellow X Factor judges Simon Cowell and Louis Walsh.

It’s no wonder that Cheryl Tweedy may now yearn for some of that old-time adulation and want to resurrect her profile.

Sixteen years on from my surreal encounter with her in that nightclub loo, and two years after she disappeared from the limelight, Cheryl clearly feels she can handle another spin on the celebrity carousel.

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