Cheryl (singer)

• 1. Introduction

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  Cheryl Ann Tweedy, the English singer and television personality known simply as Cheryl, once described her own voice with a shrug. She spoke about her ability and said, "I am very aware of my ability, I know I'm no Mariah Carey but I think the emotion in the song is what matters." Even so, in 2014 she became the first British woman to have five solo number one singles in the United Kingdom. How did a singer who ranks herself below Mariah Carey reach that record? The route runs through a televised talent contest, a judge's chair on two continents, and a court verdict. It also runs through a press that crowned her a sweetheart one season and picked her apart the next. Her story is partly about pop success. It is also about what it costs to build a career while the whole country watches.

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• 2. Tyneside Beginnings

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  Cheryl was born on the 30th of June 1983 in Newcastle upon Tyne and grew up on council estates in the suburbs of Walker and Heaton. She was the fourth of five children born to Joan Callaghan. She was also the first of the two children Joan had with Garry Tweedy, after the end of Joan's earlier marriage, which produced her three other children. Her parents were together for more than a decade but never married, and they separated when she was 11 years old.

  Her father's family came from Tyneside, and among his ancestors were a number of coal miners and several mariners. On her mother's side, her grandmother Olga Ridley was one of twin girls. Their father was a widower named Joseph Ridley, and their mother was his housekeeper, Edith Annie Burton. Ridley already had a number of children from his marriage. He had been a grocery warehouseman before the First World War, and he later served in France with the Durham Light Infantry as a Pioneer.

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• 3. Popstars and Girls Aloud

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  On the 30th of November 2002, Cheryl became the first contestant to qualify for a brand new girl group. The programme was Popstars: The Rivals, which set out to build one boy band and one girl group and pit them against each other for the Christmas number one spot. Cheryl had auditioned earlier that year, singing "Have You Ever". Judges Pete Waterman, Louis Walsh and Geri Halliwell chose twenty finalists, ten girls and ten boys.

  The finalists performed live on Saturday evenings, with one gender taking the stage each week. After every show, whoever had the fewest phone votes went home. Cheryl was in danger of elimination twice. She survived ahead of Emma Beard in one week and Aimee Kearsley in the next. When the public vote closed, she was joined by Nadine Coyle, Sarah Harding, Nicola Roberts and Kimberley Walsh. Together they became Girls Aloud.

  Their first single, "Sound of the Underground", beat the boy band One True Voice and their song "Sacred Trust / After You're Gone" to the 2002 Christmas number one. No band had ever gone from formation to a number one single in less time. The debut album of the same name followed in May 2003. It entered the chart at number two and went platinum with the British Phonographic Industry later that year.

  The singles kept coming. "I'll Stand by You", "Walk This Way" and "The Promise" all reached number one, and the group strung together 20 consecutive top ten singles. Two albums topped the UK Albums Chart. One was the greatest hits collection The Sound of Girls Aloud, which sold over one million copies. The other was 2008's Out of Control. The group received five Brit Award nominations and won Best Single in 2009 for "The Promise".

  Critics gave much of the credit for their sound to a partnership with Brian Higgins and his songwriting and production team Xenomania. Reviewers praised the pair for an inventive approach to mainstream pop. The group stayed in pop but moved through electropop and dance-pop. By May 2010 the group had amassed a fortune of £30 million. Guinness World Records named them the Most Successful Reality TV Group in its 2007 and 2011 editions. In the UK alone they sold over 4.3 million singles and 4 million albums.

  In 2009 the members paused the group to chase solo projects, promising a new studio album in 2010. It never arrived. In November 2012, after months of speculation, they reunited for their tenth anniversary. The comeback single "Something New" came out on the 18th of November and doubled as the charity single for Children in Need 2012. It peaked at number two. A second greatest hits collection, Ten, followed on the 26th of November, and a second single from it, "Beautiful 'Cause You Love Me", on the 17th of December.

  A documentary titled Girls Aloud: Ten Years at the Top aired on ITV1 on the 15th of December and drew 2.3 million viewers, a 10.5 percent share of the audience. The Ten: The Hits Tour ran in 2013. In March of that year, once the tour ended, the group released a statement confirming they were splitting permanently.

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• 4. The Judge's Chair

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  On the 13th of December 2008, Alexandra Burke won the fifth series of The X Factor UK, and the judge beside her had been on the panel for only a few months. Cheryl had replaced Sharon Osbourne that year, joining creator Simon Cowell, Dannii Minogue and Louis Walsh. She was given the girls category, made up of female solo contestants aged 16 to 24. That made her the winning mentor.

  A year later she took the boys category, and on the 13th of December 2009 Joe McElderry won, giving her a second consecutive victory. Cowell called her "one of the best I've ever worked with." Her streak ended in the seventh series in 2010. She mentored the girls again, but Rebecca Ferguson finished as runner-up to Matt Cardle, who was mentored by Minogue.

  In 2011 Cheryl crossed the Atlantic to join Cowell, L.A. Reid and Paula Abdul on the first season of The X Factor USA. She left after three weeks. Cowell later explained that he had offered her a seat on the eighth UK series and felt she would be more comfortable there. By then, though, Tulisa held her old chair, and Cheryl was unwilling to judge in Britain without Cowell. Nicole Scherzinger took her place in America for the rest of the season.

  The departure ended up in court. In December 2012, Cheryl sued the American producers for $2.3 million, about £1.4 million. She had been paid $1.8 million, about £1.1 million, for the 2011 series. She sued for $2 million, about £1.25 million, for the second season, plus additional damages. In November 2013 she won a settlement from the producers, Blue Orbit, for an undisclosed amount.

  She was back on the British programme in 2012 as an assistant to Gary Barlow at the judges' houses stage. In 2014 she returned as a full judge for the eleventh series, replacing Osbourne on a £1.5 million contract beside Cowell, Walsh and Mel B. Her last remaining act in the girls category, Lauren Platt, was the thirteenth contestant eliminated.

  The twelfth series in 2015 brought Cowell together with new judges Rita Ora and Nick Grimshaw. Cheryl mentored the groups category for the first time, and her final act, Reggie 'n' Bollie, reached the final and finished as runner-up. In April 2016 she announced her departure to focus on music, and Osbourne returned. She still appeared in the fourteenth series, advising Cowell at the judges' houses stage.

  BBC One's dance competition The Greatest Dancer premiered on the 5th of January 2019 with Cheryl as a dance captain. She returned for the second series in 2020. Later that year the BBC said it had no plans to continue the show.

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• 5. Solo Records

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  Cheryl's first solo moment came in 2008 on "Heartbreaker", a track by American rapper will.i.am. She had been picked to dance in the video after taking streetdancing classes while filming the ITV2 series The Passions of Girls Aloud. He then asked her to add vocals to the song itself. In April 2009 she began work on her own material, and her debut album, 3 Words, reached UK shops on the 26th of October.

  It spent two weeks at number one and was certified platinum by the British Phonographic Industry on the 6th of November for shipments above 300,000. It later tripled that figure. The lead single, "Fight for This Love", was written by Andre Merritt, Steve Kipner and Wayne Wilkins, and produced by Kipner and Wilkins. After a performance on The X Factor results show it entered the UK and Irish charts at number one. In 2010 it topped the charts in Denmark, Norway and Hungary, and it was the fourth best-selling single of 2009 in the UK.

  The title track, which features will.i.am, reached number four in the UK and seven in Ireland. It also charted at number five in Australia and went platinum there. The third single, "Parachute", made the top five in both the UK and Ireland.

  Work on a second album began in February 2010. On the chat show Alan Carr: Chatty Man, Cheryl said that some of the songs submitted for it dated back to 3 Words. Wayne Wilkins produced most of Messy Little Raindrops, released on the 29th of October 2010, with guest vocals from August Rigo, Dizzee Rascal, Travie McCoy and will.i.am. It debuted at number one in the UK and number two in Ireland. Reviews were generally mixed, though Jon O'Brien of AllMusic gave it four stars out of five. It went platinum by August 2011. Its lead single, "Promise This", a dance-pop track released on the 24th of October 2010, gave her a second UK number one.

  In between, she was busy elsewhere. From May to July 2010 she opened for the Black Eyed Peas at their British and some European dates on The E.N.D. World Tour. On the 23rd of October 2010, an episode of Piers Morgan's Life Stories featuring her drew 7.2 million viewers, the highest audience in that chat show's history.

  Her third album, A Million Lights, arrived on the 18th of June 2012 and entered at number two with 34,934 first-week sales. That marked her first album not to debut at number one and her first not to sell over 100,000 copies in a week. By comparison, 3 Words had sold 125,000 in its first week and Messy Little Raindrops around 105,000. The lead single, "Call My Name", sold 152,001 digital copies in its first week for her third number one. That made it the fastest-selling UK number one of 2012 until December, when James Arthur sold 490,560 copies of "Impossible" after winning The X Factor. "Call My Name" finished with 417,000 sales.

  Her first solo concert tour ran from the 3rd to the 17th of October 2012. It covered 11 dates, two in Ireland, one in Scotland and eight in England. A £350 meet and greet package offered an autograph, a photograph and time backstage, with proceeds going to her charity, The Cheryl Cole Foundation. Fans complained about the price.

  In between, on the 4th of June 2012, she had sung a duet with Gary Barlow at the Diamond Jubilee Concert, which he organised. In November 2012 she received her own documentary, Cheryl: Access All Areas, which drew 811,000 viewers on ITV2.

  Her fourth album, Only Human, was led in June 2014 by "Crazy Stupid Love", featuring Tinie Tempah. She performed it that month at Capital FM's Summertime Ball at Wembley Stadium. When it was released in July it entered at number one with 118,000 copies sold. That made her the third British woman with four solo number ones, after Geri Halliwell and Rita Ora. "I Don't Care" followed on the 2nd of November and also entered at the top. Jess Glynne passed her total in 2018.

  Only Human came out on the 10th of November and became her fourth solo album to debut in the top 10 in both the UK and Ireland. The title track was released as a single in March 2015. It had peaked at number 70 as an album cut in October 2014, but it missed the top 100 on release, her lowest-charting single to date.

  In July 2018 she said her fifth album was "pretty much finished." She had written every song with Nicola Roberts, her former bandmate, working alongside Naughty Boy. She signed with 3 Beat and planned a run of singles before the album. "Love Made Me Do It" came out in November 2018, and she hinted to The Guardian that she would retire from music if it underperformed. It peaked at number 19 in the UK and number 32 in Ireland. Her live performance on The X Factor was widely criticised, with viewers calling its "overtly sexual nature" inappropriate for pre-watershed television. The follow-up, "Let You", reached number 57 in the UK in May 2019. Asked in 2023 about future music, she answered, "The industry's completely changed and I don't know if I'd fit in."

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• 6. Voice and Influences

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  Cheryl's voice sits in the mezzo-soprano range. When Tom Ewing of The Guardian reviewed 3 Words, he wrote that she was not as full a singer as the belters and divas she presided over each week on The X Factor. He added that she was an expressive performer and that a less showy backing let that come through.

  The records themselves moved between genres. 3 Words mixed pop and R&B with touches of dance, disco and electropop. Messy Little Raindrops was described as a blend of "anthemic dance and synth-led R&B". On A Million Lights she added dubstep, and MTV pointed to "Girl in the Mirror" as an example.

  Britney Spears and Beyoncé are among the artists she has named as inspirations for both performance and fashion. Of Beyoncé she said, "She's empowering." A younger Cheryl wanted to be Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes of the American group TLC. She recalled wearing baggy jeans and Timberlands like a tomboy.

  She called Rihanna "a perfect pop star." Of Mary J. Blige she said, "Mary's voice sounds so grown up and you can hear that she has experienced a lot in her life, her songs help me with every heartache." She has in turn influenced artists including Selena Gomez and Jade Thirlwall. In 2006 Lily Allen wrote a song about her called "Cheryl Tweedy".

  In June 2012, Cheryl sang "Call My Name" live on The Voice UK, and some viewers accused her of lip-syncing. She took it as a compliment and said, "If you think my live vocal sounds so good it must be mimed, I'm happy." That accusation was only one thread in a much larger argument about who Cheryl really was.

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• 7. Under Scrutiny

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  On the 11th of January 2003, Cheryl got into an altercation with Sophie Amogbokpa, a toilet attendant at a nightclub. She was charged with racially aggravated assault. At her trial on the 20th of October she was cleared of the racially aggravated charge but found guilty of assault occasioning actual bodily harm. The sentence was 120 hours of community service, £500 in compensation to the victim and £3,000 in prosecution costs. Judge Richard Howard said, "This was an unpleasant piece of drunken violence which caused Sophie Amogbokpa pain and suffering."

  The fame that followed was complicated. As a young member of Girls Aloud she was treated as a teen idol, and she found the change hard. She described it as "a really difficult transition to go through" and said she struggled with being treated as an object. She felt "uncomfortable" in short skirts and some quite sexy outfits, though she insisted she would never do something she did not want to do.

  Her popularity swelled during her years on The X Factor, and the British press called her a "nation's sweetheart". Observers noted her style and her "disarming compassion and sensitivity". Bryony Gordon of The Telegraph dubbed her a "Princess Diana for the X Factor generation." Others were harsher. In 2010 Simon Hattenstone of The Guardian described how she could be seen as a "stoic saint" one day and a "hard-nosed bitch" the next, who was happy to advertise L'Oréal shampoo while wearing hair extensions. Alice Vincent of The Telegraph wrote that her career had been "pockmarked by tales of demanding behaviour and superciliary attitude". Gordon, by contrast, called her "self-critical" and "very polite about everything".

  Fashion made her one of the most photographed women in Britain. The press called her a "fashionista", and on television she wore looks from Givenchy, Preen, McQueen and Missoni. In 2009 and 2010, Glamour named her best dressed woman after counting 14,000 reader votes. Her February 2009 British Vogue cover lifted the magazine's circulation to 240,000, its best ever for a February issue. She also appeared on covers of Elle and Harper's Bazaar. FHM put her at the top of its 100 Sexiest Women in the World list in 2009 and 2010. In March 2010 the research company Millward Brown called her the second most powerful celebrity in Britain. A wax figure arrived at Madame Tussauds in London in October 2010 at a cost of about £150,000, and it was taken off display in August 2019.

  Her love life drew the loudest headlines. She began dating the footballer Ashley Cole in September 2004, and he proposed in Dubai in June 2005. They married on the 15th of July 2006 in Chipping Barnet, Hertfordshire, and sold photograph rights to OK! in a deal reportedly worth £1 million. The press labelled her a football "WAG", a term she found "derogatory".

  On the 23rd of February 2010 she announced their separation. On the 26th of May she filed for divorce at the High Court of Justice, citing "unreasonable behaviour". The papers stated that Cole admitted being unfaithful with a number of other women. She received a decree nisi on the 3rd of September. She kept her married name for a time but later released music under the single name Cheryl.

  On the 7th of July 2014 she married French restaurateur Jean-Bernard Fernandez-Versini after a three-month courtship. After the couple separated, she began dating the 22-year-old singer Liam Payne, whom she had first met when he auditioned for The X Factor at 14. She was granted a decree nisi from Fernandez-Versini on the 20th of October 2016. Her son with Payne was born on the 22nd of March 2017, and the couple announced the end of their relationship in July 2018. In May 2025 she was named co-administrator of Payne's estate, after his death without a will in October of the previous year.

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• 8. Beyond the Charts

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  At sunrise on Saturday the 7th of March 2009, Cheryl stood on the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro. She had climbed for Comic Relief in a group organised by Gary Barlow, which also included her bandmate Kimberley Walsh, Alesha Dixon, Fearne Cotton, Denise Van Outen, Chris Moyles, Ben Shephard and Ronan Keating. Cheryl, Cotton, Van Outen and Shephard reached the top first, and all nine celebrities made it. The trek raised £3.5 million. Between the 3rd of February and the 23rd of March, five of them, Cheryl, Walsh, Barlow, Moyles and Cotton, also voiced the BT Speaking Clock to raise money.

  Good causes had been part of her career since Girls Aloud. In 2004 the group covered the Pretenders' "I'll Stand by You" as the official single for the BBC's Children in Need. In 2007 they teamed with Sugababes on "Walk This Way" for Comic Relief, recorded at the request of Comic Relief co-founder Richard Curtis. In February 2011 she launched The Cheryl Cole Foundation with The Prince's Trust after meeting its president, Charles, Prince of Wales. It funds work in the North East for disadvantaged young people. In June 2011 she auctioned 20 dresses with ASOS for the foundation.

  In September 2011 she visited British soldiers in Afghanistan and was dubbed a "Forces' sweetheart". On the 23rd of January 2015 she launched a second charity with The Prince's Trust, called Cheryl's Trust. It aimed to raise £2 million for a centre in Newcastle that could support up to 4000 disadvantaged young people. To fund it she worked with Prizeo on a styling session competition in March 2015. In August 2015 she released a chocolate bar with Greggs, with 5p from each sale going to the trust. In November 2016 she became an ambassador for the charity Childline.

  Business grew alongside the music. With Girls Aloud she released five sets of false eyelashes with Eylure, each designed by a different member. A festival range followed in 2010, and a limited edition "10th Anniversary" lash came in 2012. For the same anniversary each member designed a Pandora charm bracelet. From 2009 to 2018 she was the UK spokesperson for L'Oréal. In August 2014 she launched a debut fragrance, StormFlower, and in 2025 she became the UK ambassador for Nivea.

  She also became an author. Through My Eyes, published by Bantam Press on the 30th of September 2010, was a picture book of studio, tour and X Factor moments. Her autobiography, Cheryl: My Story, followed on the 11th of October 2012 and covered her childhood, her rise with Girls Aloud and her relationships with Simon Cowell and Ashley Cole. By 2013 it had sold 275,000 copies, generating £2.5 million in sales.

  Across the screen, she has appeared in St Trinian's in 2007, What to Expect When You're Expecting in 2012, and the 2020 Sky Cinema film Four Kids and It, in which she played music manager Coco Rayne. In August 2021 she launched You, Me & R&B with Cheryl, a 12-part podcast on BBC Sounds. Some critics argued that a black artist should have presented a show about black music. She is a lifelong Labour supporter and voiced her support for same-sex marriage in 2012.

  On the 7th of December 2022 it was announced that she would make her stage debut as Jenny in the West End play 2:22 A Ghost Story, at the Lyric Theatre from the 28th of January to the 23rd of April 2023. Then, in 2024, she joined the surviving members of Girls Aloud on The Girls Aloud Show, a UK and Ireland tour marking 21 years of the group. It was also a tribute to Sarah Harding, who died in 2021.

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