Cheryl Cole catches up with GQ magazine after an interesting year

This time last year Cheryl Cole was the nation’s sweetheart, with a promising new career as a judge for the American X Factor, having been a huge success on the UK version. 12 months on and life has taken a completely different turn... Thank goodness GQ magazine caught up with her then.

She’s certainly had an interesting time of it since she first appeared on Popstars: The Rivals back in 2002. Back then fresh-faced 19-year-old Cheryl Tweedy just wanted to sing and was lucky enough to win her place in girl band Girls Aloud.

Since then she has had huge success as a pop star, become Cheryl Cole by marrying footballer Ashley Cole, been cheated on by Ashley Cole, took Cole back, become a judge on X Factor, finally divorced Cole after more cheating, had a successful solo career, survived malaria, moved to X Factor US, been fired from X Factor US and, let’s face it, pretty much kept herself out of the public eye for almost a year.

Time to move on then? It certainly seems so, as Cheryl invited GQ’s Jonathan Heaf to take an exclusive first listen to her new album – which is a far cry from her last album. Cheryl’s back with a new sound and a new attitude. No subject is untouched – Cheryl talks (unwillingly in some cases) about leaving the X Factor, Simon Cowell, her own music, Cher Lloyd, Ashley Cole (definitely unwillingly), Prince Harry and people who she admires... namely Beyoncé and Rihanna.

“You know what I love about Rihanna?” asks Cheryl. “I know she gets a lot of criticism, too, about what she wears, and what she sings about. But she is so free. She doesn’t give two f***s. I love that in her. I love that sense of freedom about her. She’s gorgeous and free. A perfect pop star.”

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Posted by Andrew Burge.