Cheryl: My Story (40 page)

‘Oh my God!’ I said just moments before I stepped out in front of the waiting photographers.

I’d had my nails painted at the last minute and, not realising they were still wet, I’d accidentally smeared burgundy-coloured nail varnish all up the side of my white Stephane Rolland dress.

‘What am I going to do?’ I panicked. I was meant to be a glamorous ambassador for L’Oréal, and this was just not acceptable. I didn’t have another dress, and even if I had it would have been too late to change as I was literally expected on the red carpet any moment.

‘You’ll just have to hold your clutch back at an angle, over the worse of it, and hope nobody notices,’ a stylist said, and that’s what I did, the whole night long.

I laughed when I saw the photographs the next day, because the bag was in exactly the same place on every shot, no matter where or how I was standing, and when I waved at the crowd it was always with my left hand as my right arm was glued to my side.

Simon called me while I was still in Cannes, which immediately wiped the smile off my face.

‘Do you want to go home … and be a UK judge?’ he asked me.

I was absolutely stunned. By that time I’d already told everyone I wasn’t doing the UK
X Factor
again. I’d made that clear when it was finally announced I was going to America. I’d done three years and enough was enough. I wasn’t going back.

‘No, Simon. I’ve been there and done it. Three times. Why are you asking me this question now?’

This was irritating beyond belief. The only reason I was doing the American
X Factor
was because Simon more or less told me I was doing it.

‘I’m just wondering … if you would consider it?’

‘No. Absolutely not.’

‘So you definitely won’t. You want to do the American one?’

I felt like screaming at him: ‘Why have you left it until
now
to ask me this? Are you crazy?’ but I simply replied, ‘I’ve started now, haven’t I, Simon?’

‘OK. Seem more like yourself when you get back then,’ he warned.

The conversation really annoyed me but I tried to put it down to Simon being under a lot of pressure himself, which I’m sure had also accounted for his odd behaviour in LA.

I was relieved that when we met up again, this time in New York, he seemed to be a bit more like the old Simon, although he did have the cheek to come up to me and say, ‘You look more like yourself today,’ with an approving smile on his face. By anyone else’s standards this was very rude, but for Simon this wasn’t untypical, and I let it go.

We were with the other judges and presenters to do a promotional event. It was called ‘Fox Presents
The X Factor
’ and was a kind of showcase for the series. Everything ran smoothly, and afterwards we all flew to Chicago for the next round of auditions.

As soon as I arrived at the Chicago venue I spotted a female producer from the UK who I knew had not long recovered from cancer. I went up to her to see how she was doing, and we ended up having a big conversation about how it feels to be poorly. I hardly ever talked about my malaria but I did on this occasion, because we were two women who had a connection.

I could sense Simon watching me, and looking back I imagine he was thinking I was not being myself again. This wasn’t a typical conversation for me to have, I admit, but I didn’t see what it had to do with Simon.

‘There’s something weird going on with Simon and Nicole,’ Lily whispered to me later that day.

I had to agree that something didn’t feel right, but I wondered if Lily was being a bit paranoid. She didn’t think she was.

‘I swear they’re whispering and stuff. Something’s not right.’

I focused on the auditions, which went really well. One of the contestants stood out for me because he could sing, he was good-looking and he had charisma. I told him, ‘You’ve got the package.’ Everyone burst out laughing, because the guy was wearing really tight jeans which obviously made people focus on the word ‘package’. I hadn’t meant for that to happen, but it was all good fun. I felt the same vibe I’d felt in the UK. I was enjoying myself, and the audience seemed to be really enjoying what I was doing.

We had a two-week break after the day of auditions in Chicago, because Simon had to be back in the UK for
Britain’s Got Talent
. Before we left, Richard Holloway came up to me and asked where I was spending the time, and when I told him I was going back to England he asked if he could meet me there. He made it sound like a casual thing, as if we might just go out for dinner or something, and I happily agreed.

He phoned very shortly after we got back to London. Lily took the call and asked if we could arrange a date for the following week.

‘Er, not really,’ Richard replied. ‘I need to see her sooner than that. We need to meet as urgently as possible.’

Alarm bells were ringing, and I agreed to see him in a hotel near my house in Hadley Wood a couple of days later. My mam was down, and I didn’t want him coming to the house with her there, because I could sense this was bad news.

‘Something’s off,’ I told Lily. ‘If this isn’t a social visit, why hasn’t he rung management?’ That’s how it worked, and that would have been the polite thing to do. If someone wanted to fix up a business meeting, however well I knew them, they would go through my management team, making arrangements with either Seth or Hillary.

‘I’ve got a gut feeling this is gonna be about him telling me that American
X Factor
is over. Will you come with me?’

Lily agreed because she felt the same bad vibes herself and she didn’t want me to be on my own.

As we drove to the hotel I told her, ‘I promise you – watch how this goes down. I can feel it.’

Richard looked all awkward and weird when we walked in, and he launched into his spiel straight away.

‘Right, there’s no easy way of saying this. You’re going to be replaced on
X Factor
America … but your chair’s still here for you in
X Factor
UK.’

I could feel the shock coming from Lily even though she was sat across the room from us, but I felt nothing, again. I had that numbness I’d had when I first took the job.

‘No, I don’t want it, thank you,’ I told Richard.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean I don’t want the
X Factor
UK chair back, but thank you.’

‘You need to seriously consider what you are doing for your career,’ he said.

I looked at Lily in complete disbelief now. How much front did this man have?

‘Thank you, Richard, but I don’t want the job, but thank you for the offer. By the way, who am I being replaced by?’

He paused for a moment and then said, ‘Nicole.’

Lily was shaking her head now. She’d been right this whole time.

‘They don’t appreciate you as much in America, Cheryl, but they love you here. Nobody wanted you to leave
X Factor
UK. Think about it. It’ll be a massive homecoming. It’ll be amazing. The British audience thought they’d lost you and you’re back. You’ll be head judge. Can you imagine the reception you’ll get when you go out on that stage?’

I let him say his piece, and the whole time I was thinking, ‘This is crazy. I didn’t even ask for the American job in the first place. This is all Simon’s fault.’

When Richard stopped talking I looked him straight in the eye and asked, ‘You’re basically telling me you’re doing Simon’s dirty work?’

He nodded, then said again, ‘You have to consider the offer.’

I was getting extremely irritated now, and I told Richard exactly what I thought.

‘Absolutely not. It wouldn’t be amazing at all. You’ve already told Gary Barlow he’s head judge and suddenly you’re telling me to be head judge? What would happen about stupid things like who would get Simon’s dressing room? I’ve got a lot of respect for Gary Barlow. He’s older than me and has way more experience and I look up to him in this industry. I’ve been brought up to respect me elders. NO WAY!’

There was also the question of somebody else losing out on a job because of me. They had Tulisa and Kelly Rowland lined up, and Richard told me it would be up to me who I wanted to work with, alongside Gary and Louis. This felt wrong on so many levels. Other people’s lives were being played with, not just mine.

‘Can you tell me why I’m being replaced?’ I asked. ‘Is that possible, because I really don’t know what I’ve done wrong.’

Richard made reference to my Geordie accent, which I really took exception to.

‘Me accent? Now you’re making Fox look foolish. They’re a massive worldwide company and they are not gonna employ somebody that cannot be understood. I am the same person they saw at Christmas. They sat in the audience in London. They knew exactly what they were employing.’

‘Look, just consider the offer,’ Richard said yet again. ‘I’ll give you a call later in the week.’

The UK auditions were due to start in a week’s time. I knew it was going to be horrible for me now in the media whatever happened next, and so I asked Richard not to tell Simon my decision until I’d spoken to him myself. I could already imagine the headline. ‘Cheryl wants to come home!’ That’s what Simon would tell the press so he didn’t look bad, and I didn’t want him to be able to put anything out there until I’d talked to him directly.

When Lily and I left the hotel she was whiter than me, and we were both laughing nervously.

‘I cannot believe they’d have let you turn up to that on your own,’ she said.

‘
I
can’t get over the fact that “big man” Simon, the same guy that told me I had the job and told me “don’t wear that hair” couldn’t tell me I didn’t have the job! The coward didn’t even have the guts to phone us or send us a message warning me what was coming.’

I was still giggling with nerves when I got back home, knowing I would have to face my mam and Garry with the news.

‘I’ve been sacked from American
X Factor
,’ I told them bluntly as soon as I walked in the door, and then I burst out laughing.

‘Shut up, yer daft sod!’ my mam said. ‘No way! For what?’

Garry was open-mouthed. ‘No way, man. Shut up! Never!’

‘I promise you, I know I’m laughing but I’m not joking with you. Richard said it was because of me Geordie accent but I’m not buying that. No way.’

Then it was a question of who to phone first. Simon wouldn’t have been up at this time, so I called Sundraj. He also represents Nicole, so this was going to cause him all kinds of hell.

‘Hi Sundraj, I’m home.’

‘Hey! How are you? How was it?’

‘Funny you should ask that, actually. I’ve got news for you: I’ve been sacked.’

I started to laugh nervously again.

‘You’re joking, aren’t you?’

‘I swear I’m not joking.’

Sundraj couldn’t believe that neither he, Seth nor Will had received a call.

‘Cheryl, I know you’re laughing but this is really bad,’ he said.

‘You’re telling
me
.’

Seth’s reaction was to say indignantly, ‘How
dare
Simon do this to you!’

The terms and conditions of my contract had not been the best, but I’d settled on them so as not to hold the deal up, and because I trusted Simon completely.

‘What breaks my heart is that I can see your little face looking at me and saying, “I know the contract isn’t great but I trust Simon wholeheartedly”,’ Seth said. ‘Now he’s fed you to the lions! That hurts so much.’

Will went absolutely bananas. ‘F*** the English
X Factor
’ were his exact words. ‘You’re not touching that show, no way!’

The very next day it was all over the press: ‘Cheryl sacked from the
X Factor
USA because of her Geordie accent’. There were spiteful remarks about my orange and purple outfit and big hair too, which was an absolute joke. That same week,
Vogue
had named me as ‘Best Dressed of the Week’ because, although Simon didn’t know it, of course, colour blocking was about to be the next big thing, and on top of that Sarah Jessica Parker had worn the same hair as I’d had and got loads of praise for it in the American press.

I was furious with Simon for letting it happen like this. I believed we had a good friendship and I couldn’t understand why he just hadn’t been straight with me. It was so frustrating not knowing the truth, too. Was it that he actually
needed
me back on the UK
X Factor
, or had it
really
just not worked out for me in the US? I’d have taken it on the chin if he’d had the guts to come out and say either of those things to my face.

Despite the frustration and anger I felt, once I caught my breath and sat down and thought about it on my own, I realised I was actually feeling relieved it was all over. I knew it would be hell in the media for a while, but at least I didn’t have to get back on a plane to America, or start auditions in the UK in a weeks’ time. It was over, and I felt like I had my life back.