Revealed: The X-rated family Cheryl Cole left behind

By Richard Price
Last updated at 2:21 AM on 12th November 2008

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Perfect features: Cheryl shows off her enviable figure

Relative values: For all her fame and fortune, Cheryl can't escape her unfortunate family problems

For a woman who seems to work every hour God sends, Cheryl Cole has an extraordinary - some might say infuriating - knack of looking as fresh as a daisy.

On Saturday night, ten million viewers marvelled at her megawatt smile and impossibly glossy hair on The XFactor, despite the fact that she was suffering with a severe dose of the 'flu.

Her pop group, Girls Aloud, are sitting pretty at the top of the album charts; her already lucrative X Factor contract is up for renewal, with an opening bid of £1.5million a year; and at the end of a hard day's preening she goes home to the sprawling Surrey pile she shares with her husband, Ashley, a Chelsea footballer whose salary dwarfs even Cheryl's substantial income.

All the while the starlet's perfect features are a fixture in newsagents across the country, gazing down from the glossy covers of endless magazines.

It all seems to come so easily to the fiercely ambitious 25-year-old, who likes to be known simply as Mrs Cole. Consider that these very words are tattooed - quite literally - on the back of her delectable neck, and it soon becomes clear that this is one lady who was not born into privilege.

Indeed, had opportunity not come knocking six years ago in the form of Popstars: The Rivals - the reality television show which led to the formation of Girls Aloud - things might have turned out very differently for the then Cheryl Tweedy.

Three hundred miles north of her six-bedroom, gated mansion in leafy Oxshott (complete with its own cinema - she is, after all, a WAG) lies an altogether different residence.

It is here, in a down-at-heel terrace house in Heaton, Newcastle, that the Tweedy family seat can be found. And away from the stylists, airbrushes and PR mollycoddlers of Cheryl's ivory tower, the picture isn't quite as pretty.
Cheryl and the other X Factor judges: Louis Walsh, Dannii Minogue and Simon Cowell

Cheryl and the other X Factor judges: Louis Walsh, Dannii Minogue and Simon Cowell

Take her elder sister, Gillian, for example, who answers the door with a brusque: 'We don't talk to the Press.' Only four years separate the sisters (Gillian is 29), but in terms of lifestyle and appearance, the two may as well be from different planets.

'Where Cheryl's hair tumbles almost to her waist in impeccably groomed chestnut curls, Gillian's is mousy brown and scraped back into a hair band.

While Cheryl is personally dressed by fashion designer Matthew Williamson, Gillian (who recently gave birth to a baby boy named, rather colourfully, Keric) lives in frayed jeans and tracksuits accessorised by gaudy jewellery which owes more to Argos than Tiffany.

Indeed, the one thing the sisters have in common is a track record of appearing in court charged with brawling in public.

But Cheryl's and Gillian's convictions (of which more later) pale into insignificance when compared with the track record of their brother, Andrew, an alcoholic glue-sniffer who has clocked up more than 50 court appearances and spent a third of his life behind bars.

Relative values: Cheryl's sister Gillian Tweedy

Relative values: Cheryl's sister Gillian Tweedy

It is Andrew who illustrates with sobering clarity just how differently the nation's newly crowned sweetheart could have turned out.

Yesterday the 28-year-old broke cover to give a self-serving interview to a downmarket tabloid, in which he admitted to his addictions and life of crime, revealing that Cheryl had visited him in prison and had even offered to pay for him to go to rehab.


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Andrew Tweedy, who last saw Cheryl two months ago at a family gathering, recalled how she visited him in Acklington jail in Northumberland last Christmas. 'She came on her own. She looked so sad and tired ... with her hair scraped back in a ponytail and the hood up on her sweatshirt. It broke my heart to see her so cut up.

'Everyone in the visiting hall knew who she was, but she just didn't care that they could see her crying.'

Andrew Tweedy: An alcoholic glue sniffer who has clocked up over 50 court appearances

Andrew Tweedy: An alcoholic glue sniffer who has clocked up over 50 court appearances

He went on: 'Cheryl wants to help me but I'm too far gone. I know I'm breaking her heart, but I'm not strong enough to sort myself out. I watch Cheryl on TV and think: "Your life is so different to the one you left behind."

'She tells me I should be inspired by what she's done and that I can turn my back on booze and violence. Instead, like a fool, I go back to the drink and the glue.'

All of which makes it understandable that while Cheryl has always made a point of being proud of her working-class roots, back in Heaton there is a growing body of opinion that she should cut down on the pronouncements from her ivory tower.

Neighbours on the street where she grew up have detected a softening of her Geordie vowels, plus a tendency to refer to her home town as a hotbed of heroin abuse and deprivation.

Model behaviour: Picture perfect Cheryl keeps her family secrets to herself

Model behaviour: Picture perfect Cheryl keeps her family secrets to herself

Margaret Ross, 59, who lived next door to Cheryl, told me: 'I have known Cheryl her whole life. She's a lovely girl. But since she went down to London for that TV show years ago I haven't seen her. Not once.

'She's left this life behind. If you speak to folk round here, you will find they are good people who aren't happy about what she says about the estate. If there is heroin available, it's well hidden.'

This view is not shared by Cheryl, who says of Heaton: 'There were lots of users in my area. Heroin was there for the taking. I could have taken that route, but I always maintained my ambition and I'm proud of myself.'

Her comments, prompted by the death of a childhood friend three years ago from a drug overdose, were no doubt heartfelt. But they have touched a raw nerve with her former friends in Newcastle.

Another neighbour who knew Cheryl as a teenager, 36-year-old Nicola, is furious with Cheryl's comments about her childhood home.

When I heard what she had said, I was disgusted. She's made out it was completely drug addled but it wasn't. Every town has bad areas but there are a lot worse than this.

'It's a shame because I was good friends with her when she was growing up. She was always round our house, and we hung out together. I even went down to see her in London when she was on Popstars.

'But in recent years I haven't seen her at all. If she does come back I haven't heard about it and I've certainly never seen her.'

With such a dubious family background, however, it is not hard to imagine why Cheryl should seek to put a few miles between herself and the life she left behind. These days.

Cheryl has the benefit of a tenstrong entourage who follow Girls Aloud around the television studios (their GMTV appearance earlier this month required the attentions of two hairdressers, two make-up artists, a stylist and five further lackeys to ensure neither a hair nor a word was out of place).

Prior to the rough edges being knocked off, however, she had a well-publicised brush with the law when she assaulted a nightclub lavatory attendant in Guildford. A jury decided the attack in January 2003 was not racially motivated, but she was convicted of actual bodily harm and ordered to pay out £3,500 and carry out 120 hours' community service.

Cheryl

Stars in her eyes: Cheryl as a 13-year-old hopeful in Newcastle upon Tyne

Judge Richard Howarth described what happened as an 'unpleasant piece of drunken violence' and was astonished to note that the star - a role model to thousands of young women - had 'shown no remorse whatsoever'.

This appetite for petty violence is something of a family trait, however. Gillian, for example, was bound over to keep the peace for 12 months after becoming involved in a fist-fight along with Andrew.

It happened in November 2002 after the siblings had been out on a drinking binge to celebrate Cheryl's success in reaching the finals of Popstars: The Rivals.

Yet this incident pales into insignificance in comparison to Andrew's other exploits. In 2005 he was given a four-year jail term for mugging a teenager. (This being modern Britain, of course, he was released long before the end of his sentence.) The details of the case, though thoroughly unpleasant, bear scrutiny. Andrew and an accomplice targeted stranger Kian Brady as he made his way home from Newcastle city centre in the early hours after finishing work.

Six years, five albums and 19 Top Ten hits: Cheryl with her band Girls' Aloud

Six years, five albums and 19 Top Ten hits: Cheryl with her band Girls' Aloud

The pair followed him and jumped on him from behind, knocking him over and pushing his face into the ground. They then repeatedly punched him and demanded his money, credit cards and PIN numbers, before fleeing with his portable CD player, mobile phone and £6 in cash.

Their victim was left barely conscious with horrendous facial injuries which required hospital treatment.

During the court case, it also emerged that Andrew had a string of previous convictions dating back to a street robbery when he was just 13. Most shockingly of all, however, he was sent to a young offenders' institution for six years in 1996 for stabbing two students in a pub.

As he described in yesterday's tabloid interview: 'Cheryl was only 11 and it hit her really hard. For the three years I was locked up, she came to see me a few times with the rest of the family.'

Despite these tribulations, Cheryl has remained fiercely defensive of her family, and remains particularly close to her mother Joan, 48. So close, indeed, that Joan lived with Cheryl and Ashley for several months after their 2006 wedding.

And after lurid allegations emerged earlier this year that Ashley had cheated on Cheryl with a hairdresser, causing a furore in the tabloid Press, it was Joan who rushed to her younger daughter's side.

Their relationship is understood to be more like that of sisters than mother and daughter. They have been known to go out clubbing together on many occasions - and even Joan is not immune to the Tweedy proclivity for violent outbursts (she once rather charmingly told a reporter: 'I'll rip your face off if I see you again.').

Cheryl's other siblings, however, are said to be rather more sensible than Gillian and Andrew. Eldest brother Joe, 31, has kept out of the limelight, but he and his wife, Kerry, remain extremely protective of Cheryl.

Then there is youngest brother Garry, 21, a student with whom Cheryl took her first steps as a child model in two advertisements for British Gas.

Even he sees fit to illustrate his Facebook webpage with photograph in which he has a traffic cone on his head. Sensible, it seems, is a relative word.

It should come as little surprise then that trouble has a habit of following Cheryl around. Yet in the past year she has discovered the knack of making the tribulations of life work to her advantage.

While she ruminated on whether to forgive Ashley's infidelity or not, the public bought magazines in their millions, agog at the tales of drastic weight loss and private screaming matches.

Whether these stories were true or not didn't really matter; almost overnight Cheryl Cole became circulation gold for the magazines, a wronged, fragile beauty whose face alone was guaranteed to shift copies.

As her public profile soared, so did her earning potential, culminating in an £800,000 contract to join The X Factor as one of the four judges, replacing the outgoing Sharon Osbourne.

In a few weeks' time, after a breathless year, she will take a break for the first three months of 2009. Whether she will be heading back to her Newcastle roots for a long overdue catch-up is questionable, but it is fair to say that the private beaches of Dubai and Mauritius are a more likely destination.

In the meantime there is yet more work to do, and the coming week will be spent busily preparing her two remaining acts for another potentially life-changing performance on The X Factor stage.

Brother Andrew, meanwhile, is awaiting yet another court appearance on Friday on charges of interfering with a motor vehicle, failure to surrender to arrest, assault and possession of a prohibited weapon.

Perhaps Cheryl's determination to stay with her philandering husband in their palatial Surrey mansion is not so hard to understand after all.



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Comments (154)

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I hope Cheryl reads the comments attaced to this pointless article. She has never hidden that she escaped a possible life like her family. Everyone with any sense would want to get out and make a better life for themselves - she should be applauded. Good luck Cheryl - you've got it all and deservedly so!

- Molly, Singapore, 11/11/2008 07:21
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When someone has had the guts and determination to escape from the life that is described in this article I think they deserve credit and should not be mocked for in any way turning their back on their past. Cheryl appears to have tried to help her family members, but I don't blame her at all for not being back there every five minutes and allowing them to in any way represent who she has become as a person and as a successful entertainer. I'm not famous and rich but I have left behind a background similar to this and no, I don't go around telling everyone about it because I've worked hard to move forward, but I do support my family in any way I can, and that is what Cheryl appears to have done. What is wrong with that, and why does this article have to be written like it's an expose and a subject she is trying to hide from? The mentality of these people is not who Cheryl was in the past or who she is today, so why should she pretend otherwise. Leave the girl alone.

- Terry, Guildford, Surrey, 11/11/2008 07:00
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she is gorgeous, can sing and the world loves her. why would she go back to the grim and desperate.

smart girl.

- louise, Melbourne, Australia, 11/11/2008 06:05
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Cheryl, you are pretty and that 13 year-old shot really is cute. You stood behind your man Ashley who cheated. That was very good of you. Do not be worried about what your one time neighbours say. It is your life and do take care of yourself and Ashley.

- Al-malik, Malaise, 11/11/2008 01:44
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Achievement is that much more sweeter, and inspirational, when someone has had to overcome many struggles and high odds to pursue a dream. Cheryl should never be judged for a background that makes her experience in life so rich. She should be applauded for it, and held up as an example to everyone in any walk of life about the indefatigible nature of someone chasing a dream - and making it happen! Cheryl is a walking, glowing inspiration. As for her mum, you couldn't meet a nicer woman with a big heart. Like any Lionness, she will protect her pack - so let the family be, and cease the judgemental smirks and snide comments.

- Steve, London, UK, 11/11/2008 01:10
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Just goes to show that water seeks its level. She has a lot of talent, and is a very sweet and down to earth person, so its wonderful she managed to make something of herself. She has never pretended to be from anywhere nice, and seems to be a very loyal person. She has no control over her trashy family members--doesn't everyone have one of those? I think shes great. Sure she's rich, but she earns every penny with hard work and talent, and never forgot where she came from, good or bad.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1084308/Revealed-The-X-rated-family-Cheryl-Cole-left-behind.html#ixzz0lhGGxDDs