'It's been a hideous time for Bear': Truth behind Cheryl's surprise TV comeback as insiders tell KATIE HIND about her quiet life with her son, and why she's joined the Voice two years after the death of Liam Payne

There was a time when Cheryl Cole had her life mapped out on a road ablaze with bright lights. Young, beautiful, talented, rich and married to the love of her life, the England and Chelsea footballer Ashley Cole, she wholeheartedly embraced the fame that saw her become a ‘national treasure’, with the couple heralded as the new Posh ’n’ Becks.

She was going to be a young mum, she’d tell journalists, with whom she was always happy to engage – me included – during her Noughties heyday.

Eager and fun to chat with, she’d talk about how she wanted lots of children, but stressed she was definitely going to keep working – both as a pop star, having made her name as a contestant on talent show Popstars: The Rivals in 2002, and with Girls Aloud, before becoming a much-loved judge on The X Factor.

The public couldn’t get enough of her and she seemed to love every second of it. Decades later, it’s painfully clear that things didn’t go to plan.

Humiliated by Cole’s repeated infidelities, their marriage fell apart in 2010, as did her second, short-lived marriage in 2014 to French restaurateur Jean-Bernard Fernandez-Versini.

Far from the domestic bliss she’d envisaged, she found herself a single mother to her now nine-year-old son, Bear, born during a relationship with the much younger, and troubled, One Direction member Liam Payne, who fell to his death from a hotel in Buenos Aires in 2024 following a drugs and alcohol binge.

The devastating accident saw Cheryl, 43, retreat from TV, despising and eschewing all media attention, to focus on her son.

But now, almost two years since Payne’s death, she’s reportedly set for a huge comeback as a coach on the ITV talent show The Voice UK – known for its revolving chairs.

She is said to be in final stage talks with the network about joining next year’s series, with filming starting next month.

Cheryl is also returning with a new campaign for skincare range Nivea, announced on Thursday, in a deal which is understood to be worth hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Her surprise comeback has prompted many of Cheryl’s former associates to wonder just why she has decided to put herself back in the glare of the publicity she hated so much.

The answer is clear: She’s doing it for Bear.

One source tells me she finally feels strong enough to pick up the threads of her old life, and wants to make her son proud.

‘Bear has never seen her on television, so how lovely would it be for him to see his mummy on TV doing something she used to love.

‘Cheryl’s priority has been her son and there have been some very difficult times, not just after Liam’s death, but before it too, so work was a no no, as was living in the public domain.

‘She is a brilliant mother and she wants Bear to grow up privately.

‘The Voice is fun, it’s pre-recorded and it’s the perfect way for her to dip her toe back into television and give Bear something to really smile about. It has been a hideous time for him since his father died, it has broken the hearts of Liam’s entire family.’

For the last six years Cheryl has lived a quiet life at her Buckinghamshire mansion with Bear – with no whiff of a new romance.

While she did appear alongside her former girl band members for a reunion tour in 2024, and in London’s West End playing lead character Jenny in thriller 2:22 A Ghost Story, her last television job was The Greatest Dancer back in 2020 – which Bear didn’t see because he was so tiny.

There were rumours last year that she was about to join The Voice, although terms could not be reached. Some suspect it was too soon after Payne’s death.

This year, however, sources tell me it all looks like it will go ahead, much to the delight of ITV bosses.

‘ITV have been trying to get Cheryl for years,’ says my source. ‘They know what a coup getting her back on their screens would be. The nation was obsessed with her when she was on The X Factor, and while that show doesn’t seem to be showing any sign of a rebirth, that doesn’t mean she can’t bring in the ratings on a similar programme.

‘The X Factor was a gigantic operation, The Voice is a much less terrifying prospect for her so there are a lot of happy people at ITV right now.’

Cheryl’s dream life began to unravel in March 2010 when it was claimed Cole sent nude pictures of himself to model Sonia Wild, then 28, which he profusely denied.

Further kiss and tells followed however. Next came Vicki Gough, a 30-year-old secretary working for Liverpool FC, who claimed she had sex with him on two occasions before big matches.

Then there was American Ann Corbitt who alleged that Cole slept with her in his hotel room in Seattle while on a tour with Chelsea the previous summer.

The accusations left Cheryl heartbroken. ‘Ashley was the love of her life, she loved him so much,’ an associate of Cheryl’s said.

Newly single, she was moved from the UK X Factor to Simon Cowell’s new American version. But he sacked her just a few auditions in and replaced her with Nicole Scherzinger – who was previously the show’s host. Network executives were concerned US audiences wouldn’t understand her Geordie accent and felt she lacked chemistry with fellow judge Paula Abdul.

Cowell later admitted he thought she was lacking confidence, as she was still raw from her divorce.

There was one consolation however. In the US, she formed an unlikely alliance with American rapper and Black Eyed Peas front man Will.i.am, with whom she collaborated for her rather ironically named 2008 song, Heartbreaker. He became a steadfastly loyal friend, and helped her pick up the pieces and smile again.

And now, 15 years later, he will once again be at her side as she returns to our screens on The Voice, where he has been a judge since the show began in 2012.

Whether she manages to pick up the threads of her old relationship with the Press, however, remains to be seen.

She once delighted in being written about on a daily basis. She didn’t even appear to mind when she was played off against her fellow X Factor judge Dannii Minogue almost weekly – not only over their fashion but which of them was Cowell’s favourite.

And it was on The X Factor, of course, that she first set eyes on Payne – when he was a 14-year-old, starstruck contestant, and she the glamorous judge ten years his senior.

They got together eight years later when he was 22 and she 32.

After returning from America with her tail between her legs, she initially refused to work with Cowell ever again.

While she did return to television – and to work for Cowell on The X Factor in 2014 – few are aware of the long-term damage Cole’s affairs and being dropped from American X Factor had done.

A friend of mine bumped into Cheryl at a members’ club in Notting Hill, west London, a few years back where she spoke about how difficult she’d found being ditched by Cowell and how, ultimately, it had turned her against fame. How different it was back in 2007, when I would regularly bump into her. She appeared indomitable.

I remember her telling me how she’d ordered Cole to turn down an extremely lucrative offer to leave Arsenal for Real Madrid.

‘I couldn’t let him do that,’ she said passionately over a cocktail at West End nightclub, Paper.

‘I’m a Girl Aloud, it’s my job. I love it and I won’t let the other girls down and move to Spain.’

She also appeared to revel in the press attention. I recall the morning her PR called my former boss to share the happy news she and Cole were dating back in 2004 – actively seeking column inches as they all knew what a big deal it was that an Arsenal footballer was dating a pop star.

She later happily allowed me to join her hen do at West End nightclub Umbaba where she confided in me how nervous she was of her big day.

Latterly, I wrote a speculative story about how she might be pregnant after

disappearing off the showbiz scene for a few weeks. When I ran into her at a west London hotel a few weeks later she, along with her band mates, giggled as they lambasted me for being so stupid.

She had in fact had an operation on her foot but found the whole saga very funny indeed. Today, I’m not sure she would be quite so jovial about it.

The next time I saw Cheryl was at the Pride of Britain awards in October 2011. We spotted each other from our tables, she waved but she no longer wanted to speak to journalists.

Cheryl’s return will undoubtedly be very different to her previous ventures, but knowing how much she longed to be a working mum, having Bear watching her will make it by far the happiest job she’s ever had.