Read Cheryl Cole: Her Story - the Unauthorized Biography for Free Online

appeared so confident and professional that it looked like she’d been on the circuit for years. She definitely had something special, so I was not that surprised when she did so well on Popstars. ’
    Another famous face who remembers Cheryl from her early days was Big Brother star Michelle Bass, who, having grown up in Newcastle, would often go to the Metro Centre, where she saw Cheryl sing on a number of occasions.
    ‘I never knew her on a personal level, but I used to see her performing at the Metro Centre all the time,’ Michelle recalled. ‘She used to wear tracksuits and have her hair in a pony tail with a big fringe. Some people said she looked like a chav, or a charver as they call them up that way, but I think she looked good. The song she used to sing quite a lot was a track called “I’m Gonna Get You” and her performance would normally consist of her doing the splits. In great big sweatpants!’
    After a period of gigging locally, Cheryl took the plunge and moved briefly to London where she was signed up by management company Brilliant, which was run by Nicki Chapman, a judge on the original Popstars who would later become a leading figure at Simon Fuller’s 19 Management. Here, she spent her time traipsing around the city auditioning or playing showcases. It was tough for Cheryl, as this time she was inthe big smoke all by herself, while Joan remained at home constantly worrying about her – even though Cheryl was all grown up now and had more confidence than she had when she was training at the Royal Ballet.
    And Joan’s concern wasn’t completely unfounded. It was hard for Cheryl to make her mark in London. Although with Brilliant’s backing she managed to land a few gigs as a session singer and very nearly a record deal, solo success still seemed out of reach.
    So, reluctantly, Cheryl had to return home to Newcastle. She worked in bars to make ends meet, which left her feeling forlorn. Was she ever going to achieve her goal of fame? Or had she experienced the best of her opportunities already, destined to remain in Newcastle serving customers drinks and flashing them a flirty smile?
    It was while she was working at Tyneside’s floating nightclub Tuxedo Princess that Cheryl met a customer called Richard Sweeney. ‘He was totally smitten by her,’ a friend of Richard’s remembered in the Mirror. ‘The minute they started dating, they were inseparable, and Richard thought perhaps he had finally found his Miss Right.’ But little did he know that waiting just around the corner was something that would not only end his relationship with Cheryl but would also change Cheryl’s life forever.
    When Cheryl heard the news in early 2002 that a new series of Popstars was to hit TV screens, she knew her time had come. Two years previously she had sat at home with her mother Joan, feeling frustrated that she was being forced to watch Noel Sullivan, Myleene Klass, Kym Marsh, Danny Foster and Suzanne Shaw form the reality band Hear’Say. It also hit her hard thatMichelle Heaton, whom she knew from her Metroland days, and the other wannabes who failed to get into Hear’Say went on to form their own band, Liberty X, which would go on to dominate the charts with their cooler R&B sounds. Fame and success seemed so close to Cheryl and yet so very far.
    As she read the front-page stories about both bands, Cheryl was devastated that she hadn’t been part of the process, that she hadn’t had the chance to shine and show the world what she could offer. Every time she heard Hear’Say’s ‘Pure And Simple’ on the radio or read about how the record had broken first-day sales, her heart ached, wishing that it were her up there performing and being photographed. It didn’t even bother her when Hear’Say’s star took a sudden tumble, and the records stopped selling by the bucketload: she still felt that she wanted what they had.
    But then her dreams appeared to be answered. A year after Gareth Gates and Will