Whether this is true love or a giant publicity stunt, it is clear that Cheryl and Liam do have a considerable amount in common. Both are members of extremely successful bands that achieved fame through televised singing competitions, and have at times struggled with life in the public eye.
Still, when scrolling through Twitter, it is hard to ignore the depressingly predictable onslaught of abuse from die hard 'Directioners', tearing Cheryl apart like bloodthirsty piranhas.
Disappointingly, not everyone expressing their anger at this news is a hormonal teenager driven by acne and self-loathing. My Twitter feed is genuinely full of adults who are outraged by the age difference between the couple, many going as far to say that the pairing is 'disgusting' and 'wrong'. Disclaimer: I love Cheryl. After all, Cheryl is only ten years and two months older than Liam, and we are constantly seeing older men with young and beautiful women. The list goes on. So why does everyone have such a problem when the tables are turned?
Why is it that women receive death threats and men get high fives? In similarly eye-rollingly awful news, Emma Watson also received criticism after revealing that she subscribes to sexual pleasure research site OMGyes. It's not like I'm talking to you about something that's in my past. It's very present.
If it had happened five years ago, it might be easier to answer your question. Cole always hated being talked of as a football Wag — she made it clear she had her own successful career. At The X Factor studios, we are a few yards from Wembley Stadium, where the wives and girlfriends would turn out to watch their partners represent England. It must be a relief that she no longer has to do that, I say.
It put you in the position of not being a person, just being the wife of someone, and I'm very uncomfortable with that — not in terms of going to Wembley to support your husband, but in terms of what that tag means and how you're perceived. Cole is not the first woman whose footballer partner cheated on her.
This year, it seems that half the England team have been on the front pages for the same thing. Why is what happened to her so common in the football world?
And now she really is upset — whether it's with me, or my wording, or everything we're talking about, I don't know.
I hate that. It didn't happen to me. It's someone else's actions. The malaria happened to me. I just hate it. Hate it. Hate the whole fucking thing. She gulps, and chokes back a tear.
Look, she says, the fact that Ashley Cole is a footballer isn't relevant. When your heart is breaking, your heart's breaking — it makes no difference what either of you do.
Just for me personally, that was my choice. Cole, now 27, always wanted to be a successful singer. Not famous, she stresses, just successful. She grew up on a rough council estate in Newcastle. So many kids drank and took drugs and ruined themselves before they'd even embarked on adulthood. Her parents separated when she was 11, she was suspended from school twice for fighting, and for swearing and her brother was in regular trouble with the law.
But there was always something special about young Cheryl — she won Boots' bonniest baby competition, was named World Star Of Future Modelling at the age of six and appeared in TV commercials for British Gas.
When she made her first appearance on Popstars: The Rivals , the show that created Girls Aloud, she looked like a pretty little street fighter. She had crooked teeth, a bit of a belly, and was at home in her tracky bottoms.
I ask if she's seen the oft-repeated TV show documenting her transformation from "chav" to "people's princess". She smiles. I'm not ashamed of that. I love that. You know what, a lot of people that don't have that are worse off because they're not street-smart.
I find it all a bit… weird. Of course, she says, she was different when she won — back then, she was a teenager; now, she's a woman. Has her character changed? I might have chilled out a bit and grown up a lot. And some. Just after winning Popstars: The Rivals, she almost killed her embryonic career.
In January , Cole got involved in a fight with a nightclub toilet attendant and was charged with racially aggravated assault and assault occasioning actual bodily harm. The prosecution said she was "high on fame" while the judge described the attack as "an unpleasant piece of drunken violence".
Cole pleaded self-defence. The jury cleared her of the racist element, but found her guilty of assault occasioning actual bodily harm. Did getting into trouble back then strengthen her in the long run?
It wasn't just a little bit of trouble, it was a big thing. It was a few weeks in, and I actually thought, 'This is the real ugly side to fame. Brutally so. And this was my first experience with the opposite. Did she think that if she'd been at home, nothing would have been made of it?
That's how you're bought up — to stick up for yourself. This mix of the hard and soft is one of the most fascinating things about Cole.
Often, depending on the context, she is described as one or the other. Both versions, she says, are a caricature. I do have a toughness. That's what's embedded in us, to be tough. Can she live a normal life when she goes home? She laughs. If it was normal, I'd go out and have my dinner and nobody would be video-phoning me eating my dinner. Has she heard that young girls have started stapling their cheeks together to recreate her dimples? She looks as if she could be sick. Oh God. What on Earth am I'm supposed to say about that?
It's funny, because having dimples is something I always struggled with growing up. It's late afternoon. The dressing room is dimly lit and largely empty — no photos, no good luck cards, just huge tubs of Butterkist popcorn and bottled water, Diet Coke, a cigarette packet and a box of matches. She gives Blue a quick cuddle, stuffs some Butterkist in her mouth and I ask a series of random questions. If anything, we're the closest we've ever been. We have funny conversations.
He checks I'm OK, he reads me really, really well. I can't hide anything from him. Singing musical dwarves! You want some popcorn? But I also think pop music helps that. And that's what I'm going to focus on — being a pop star. I'm not a politician. She stands up to wash her hands.
More specific times when you felt certain things or whatever…". Just an abstract thing… it's cold in here. There have been stories of yet another tattoo, dedicated to the dancer Derek Hough. Soon after she and Ashley Cole separated, the rumour mill went into overdrive — Hough was her new boyfriend, Hough was a cover for her new boyfriend.
I ask if she really is going out with him. She replies with a fabulous evasion. I have spoken about everything that's been written about just to put everything to bed, close the door on this year, close the door on this chapter of my life, and start afresh. And from now on in I will never talk about my personal life again.
I had to say. I just wanted to say, right, this is from the horse's mouth. And then I can move on, and try to have as much sanity and normality as possible. Outside the studio, there are paparazzi perched on their ladders trying to peer in.
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