Cheryl: My Story (36 page)

Then, in the blink of an eye I saw myself buying a pair of Christian Louboutins. They were the most gorgeous shoes I had ever seen and they cost £800. I was clicking buttons on Net-a-Porter, spending thousands of pounds.

‘What could me mates buy for that back in Newcastle?’

That’s what price tags like that used to make me think, but I was over thinking like that now. I’d discovered what the term ‘retail therapy’ meant when Ashley cheated on me, and being on
The X Factor
took away any guilt I may have had in spending that kind of money. The shoes were not a guilty pleasure; they were a pleasure I’d earned and deserved.

‘I might have the shoes, but I can’t walk to the shops in them.’

That was the very next thing that came into my head, and it hung there like a big, black rain cloud. I opened my eyes in that hospital room and everything still looked black.

‘I might have the shoes but I can’t walk to the shops in them.’

I couldn’t get that thought out of my head. It was so true. Even though my whole brain felt sore and dizzy, the words were crystal clear in my mind.

‘Who the hell am I?’ I said to Derek eventually. I don’t think he knew what to say. He must have been thinking to himself, ‘How am
I
here, in London, with this girl I haven’t long known, who’s nearly just died.’ He mustn’t have known what had hit him, but it was just so typical of me to be in a situation like this. My whole life had been like a mad rollercoaster ride. I was so used to experiencing extreme highs and extreme lows; it was all I had known, all my life.

Being in here was just the latest example. Who else climbs a mountain to raise money to protect children against malaria and ends up nearly dying from the disease the following year? It was just
so
typical of me. Who has a number one record and gets locked in a police cell, all at the same time? All these crazy combinations of events flashed in my head. Walking the red carpet one minute, visiting my brother in prison the next; marrying the man of my dreams in a fairytale wedding and then seeing him splashed across the newspapers exposed as a ‘love rat’.

You just couldn’t make it up. I’d had enough. I wanted to be floating around on the carousel now, not watching my knuckles turn white on the rollercoaster. I just had to work out
how
to change my life.

17
‘Do they not think I’m a human being?’

‘Simon, don’t worry what everyone is saying, I’ll be there for judges’ houses.’

‘Good, I’ll see you there then,’ he replied.

I’d finally been allowed home after a week at the London Clinic and Hillary had told me I wasn’t doing
The X Factor
any more and my album would have to wait until next year.

My initial thoughts were, ‘D’you wanna bet?
The X Factor
’s one thing, but I’m doing the album. I’ve lost my husband and my health, but I’m not losing me album. No way. It’s all I’ve got left.’

I reacted that way because
The X Factor
meant less to me personally than my album, but after a couple of days of sitting around at home, watching the telly and trying to build myself up by eating Sunday roasts and my mam’s home-made mince and dumplings, I was starting to feel bored and sorry for myself.

I wanted to be busy, and I thought that going to the judges’ houses stage of the competition would do me good, especially as Will had agreed to help me.

The truth was I didn’t want to sit still, because then I would have to face how I felt. I was so sad and disillusioned with my life it was easier to run away and keep running, even though I was nowhere near fit. I was all skin and bones, my muscles had wasted and my hair was falling out in clumps. It took me an hour to take a shower in the morning because I was so weak, but I didn’t care. At least I was out of hospital and on the mend.

I told Simon I’d be there when filming started again in a couple of months, and plans were made to hold my part of judges’ houses in Ascot instead of Cannes, just in case I wasn’t fit to fly.

However, in the meantime I’d already made up my mind that I was going to beg the doctors to let me go to LA, as I already had studio time booked.

‘I’m sorry, it’s out of the question,’ the doctor said when I laid out my plans, which completely shocked me. ‘Your haemoglobin is far below what it should be. In fact, I’m afraid that for the time being, the only place you’re going is back into hospital. You need a blood transfusion.’

I’d been out of hospital for about a week when I was given that news and I was horrified at the thought of going back. The doctor explained that I didn’t have sufficient ‘adult’ blood cells and that to wait for my ‘baby’ blood cells to mature could take three months, so a transfusion was the best course of action. I went back to the London Clinic very reluctantly, but the thought of having someone else’s warm blood running though my veins made me go cold.

‘I can’t do it,’ I said at the very last minute. ‘What if I don’t have the transfusion?’

‘You’ll be suffering a little while longer. You’ll feel tired and weak for about three months.’

‘OK, I’d rather suffer than have the transfusion.’

They gave me an intravenous B-vitamin through the tube that they’d intended to use for the blood transfusion, to give me a boost. They also kept me in overnight, and I actually felt better than I had for weeks. The best thing of all was that I asked one of the hospital doctors if I could go to LA and he agreed, saying I could travel in two weeks’ time, provided I wore surgical socks on the flight and made sure I listened to my body, ate well and tried to relax.

‘I promise,’ I said, but as far as the ‘relax’ part went, I was already struggling. There had been a pack of photographers outside my house all day, every day, and they were really making me feel stressed.

I couldn’t understand how they could hound me like this, knowing I’d been severely ill. Some of them had actually followed me home from the hospital that day, and when my car pulled in it felt like I was in the middle of a lightening storm as so many flashbulbs popped all around me.

‘Are they not gonna give me time to recover?’ I thought. ‘Do they not think I’m a human being?’

When I shut the front door behind me, I felt like a prisoner in my own home. I wanted to leave the country, immediately, and the thought of spending another two weeks holed up like this was making me crazy.

‘They’re ruling my life,’ I said to Derek one day. ‘I just want to go out and have a walk in the sunshine, but I can’t even do that in peace.’

‘Just do it!’ Derek said. ‘Where do you want to go?’

‘I’d be happy just to go to Starbucks down the road.’

‘Then go!’

I was in a dark, dark hole, and I knew I had to climb out of it. I listened to Derek, and I changed out of my pyjamas, threw on a white T-shirt and a pair of jeans and decided to go for it. I’ll never forget it, actually. Every day, I’d been feeling like the walls were closing in on me a little bit more. The pressure of having the paps outside made me feel like I was trapped in a furnace. There was a wall of fire to get through to get outside into the fresh air, that’s how it felt. I had to brave the flames to break out of the hell I was stuck in, but I had to do it or I’d lose my mind.

The scrum lunged towards me, shouting and closing in on me. ‘Cheryl, how are you feeling?’

They all got their picture, but they didn’t go away. I was followed to Starbucks and photographed getting a freezing cold strawberry Frappuccino. When I drank it, I had a brief moment when I didn’t care about a thing. It tasted like the most amazing drink I had ever had, because I was out in the fresh air, doing what I wanted to do, paps or not.

I made plans to go to LA, and I was absolutely
determined
not to be followed. Ashley had texted me one day to ask how I was, but I didn’t feel strong enough to reply. I kept thinking about how I’d refused to let him come to visit me in hospital, and I felt gutted. He was still my husband, because my illness had delayed the end of the divorce proceedings. How could I have turned him away like that? I’d behaved like that not because of our relationship, but because of the media.

That’s when I knew, once and for all, that the paps had to get out of my life. They had crossed the line, a long time ago, and they were not just cataloguing my life with pictures, they were interfering in it and ruling my decisions. I was honestly so scared and paranoid about them by this time that I really thought I would crack up if I had to put up with any more scrutiny.

I spoke to my lawyers about how I could go about getting an injunction against the press, and then I chartered a little private plane to take me to Paris, so I could fly from there to LA and avoid the paps at Heathrow. I literally had to sneak over the back wall of my house to get in the plane, and Lily helped me set up a whole decoy car at the front to make absolutely sure the plan worked.

My heart was thumping and I felt sick with nerves as I climbed into the plane, but it was so worth it when we took off, with the paps, the malaria and the feeling of being trapped all left behind. Unfortunately, when I landed at LAX there was another pack of paps. I just wanted to scream at them: ‘F*** off, you’re a f***ing disgrace, each and every one of you!’ but of course I didn’t. I had to remain composed and keep my dignity, otherwise I would spark another whole load of stories about how I was cracking up.

I never wanted to have to do that again though, and I told my lawyers I was prepared to do whatever it took to prove to the courts I needed that injunction, for the sake of my health.

When I quietly checked into one of my favourite hotels in West Hollywood later that day, I started to breathe again. My skin was an awful yellow colour and my hair was still falling out, but the sun was on me, I was eating coconuts cut fresh from the trees and every day I could feel myself healing. I got a doctor to do the routine blood tests I still had to go through, and Derek would come over and hold my hand sometimes when the needle went in. He was still blaming himself for my malaria and was super panicky if I didn’t get in touch with him for even a day, but I told him not to worry, and that I needed some time to myself, to work on my music.

This was true, and I also needed time to think. Each day my head was so full of thoughts it was throbbing. The malaria had changed me as a person, I could already see that. Things I would have stressed about before now mattered less. So what if my hair was falling out? It would grow back eventually. Who cares, really, if I’ve missed
The X Factor
auditions? I’ll be there for judges’ houses.

My BlackBerry was constantly beeping with messages of support from friends and family, but I felt completely and utterly lonely. I was about to get divorced, and it really hit me that for the first time in years I was a single person, standing alone in the world. I’d never felt like that before. I’d gone from living at home to being in Girls Aloud and being married to Ashley. Now it was just me, making a solo album as a single woman, living alone in a house in London and a hotel in LA. Even when I was surrounded by people I felt lonely. Looking back, I had cut myself off from family and friends, isolating myself from them because they were just another thing to deal with and I felt nobody really understood what I’d been through or was going through now.

After a month I was ready to get back home and prepare for
The X Factor
. I’d done the ‘lemonade master cleanse’ again, which helped me feel I’d flushed the malaria totally out of my system, and though I wasn’t yet strong enough to work out, I was eating more healthily than I ever had before. I’d start the day with porridge or poached eggs and I’d eat lots of fish, prawns, sushi and avocado. I think my craving for tuna and sushi in the hospital had told me something. My body was craving good things like fish oils, lean protein and B vitamins, because it knew how bad junk food and sugars would make me feel when I was at a low ebb. I’ve pretty much stuck to that diet ever since, although I still have bad days when I just want to eat burger and chips. I don’t stress about it. I feel I deserve it, because I’m so good most of the time.

Heading home, I felt healthy. I’d finished recording and I needed another purpose and something else to occupy my mind, so I was glad I had
The X Factor
waiting for me.

‘I’ll send you the tapes,’ Simon told me when I texted him to say I was coming back. I didn’t have a clue what I’d missed in the auditions or boot camp because I’d deliberately avoided all news. I hadn’t even touched a paper for well over six months, ever since I read the last reports about Ashley’s cheating.

Nicole Scherzinger had stood in for me on the show and I didn’t feel a part of it at all. Looking at the tapes, it was like watching as a viewer, which was odd. I was given the girls to mentor, including Cher Lloyd, Katie Waissel, Rebecca Ferguson and Gamu Nhengu, and as soon as I met them all I felt some of my old spark return. I wanted to find a little star, and I felt confident that I could do it, especially with Will by my side at judges’ houses.

I’d seen Katie’s first audition before I got ill and couldn’t stand her, but Simon had spent the past two years drumming into me that we needed acts who would be ‘good TV’. When I saw Katie perform this time, I had to admit that she was certainly that. She was quirky, intriguing, and busting to succeed. In short, she had the character and drive it took to withstand the pressure of the show, and so I put her through, even though she messed up when she sang in front of Will.