According to some magazines that came out today, Cheryl Cole has supposedly been seeing Ashley for a month in secret.

Well, you can now breath a sigh of relief! Her PR spokesman @supersonicpr tweeted a picture of the magazines with a straight-to-the-point caption!

It’s bulls*** Tuesday. Again.

Good to see her PR clearing things up quickly for fans.

Thanks to @KimWalshOnline for providing Youtube links to Cheryl’s heartbreaking interview that aired on ITV last night. Its split into 4 parts, click the links above to view them.

If you want the HQ video in full or the audio of the interview to listen on your ipod, click the links below.

Forum Download | Audio

The dressing-room door opens and a lapdog jumps off Cheryl Cole and scurries across the floor. “Hello, dog,” I say. “How are you?” “Hello,” says Cheryl Cole barely moving her lips, “my name is Blue and I’m very well, thank you.” Blue jumps back on to Cole’s knee, and before I know it they’re swapping soppy, sloppy kisses and I feel as if I’m playing gooseberry.

“He’s not my dog,” Cole says. “He’s the son of one of mine.” She looks into his eyes – great, dark, wet pools, not unlike her own. “He’s a gorgeous boy. Very cute. He looks like his mam.” She smiles her X Factor smile – warm, gentle, empathetic. Cole recently said, “I don’t trust anybody in my life except my mother and my dogs.”

Not surprising, really. While she has enjoyed huge success as a solo singer and as part of Britain’s most successful female pop group, Girls Aloud, and perhaps most of all as a judge on The X Factor, her private life has been hellish. Her split from footballer Ashley Cole was played out in the tabloids, with evidence of her husband’s infidelity splashed across the front pages. When she didn’t talk, the press speculated whether Our Cheryl was having a breakdown, was anorexic, had lost it as a judge, had fallen out with Simon Cowell, was seeing other men for revenge, was seeing lawyers for the ultimate revenge… Probably only Princess Diana and Posh Spice have obsessed the media as much. But even when it was announced Cheryl was divorcing Ashley still she didn’t speak.

Ten months on, she’s sick of having words put into her mouth and has agreed to do one television interview (with Piers Morgan) and one newspaper interview, with the Guardian. After this, she says, that’s it – she will never discuss her private life in public again.

On a scale of one to 10, how bad has the last year been? “Eleven,” she says instantly. She starts off with marriage, but mid-sentence changes to malaria. The disease, which she contracted three months ago while holidaying in Tanzania, is an easier place to begin. “It was the day after my birthday when the symptoms first started. I put it down to that I’d been drinking vodka the night before, because I’m not a regular drinker. I put it down to just a big hangover. It got gradually worse and worse.”

What were the symptoms like? “I was exhausted and having flushes, goosebumps one minute – blue lips, blue fingertips, blue toes – to then being boiling hot. My skin was wet. I couldn’t breathe properly.” She was diagnosed and admitted to intensive care at London’s Hospital for Tropical Diseases.

Is it true she thought she was dying? “Yeah,” she says quietly. “You want to know the details? I had no liver function, no kidney function, I was swollen with the fluid, I had no oxygen in my blood, I literally had 24 hours to get fluid out of my body, otherwise my insides were going to pack in. You know how sometimes you feel ill and say, ‘I feel like I’m dying’? Well, I actually felt like I was dying. I asked the nurse outright – was I going to die? She said, ‘There’s a possibility.’ ”

She comes to a shocked stop. Was she terrified of dying? “No, I was too tired to be scared. Honestly. I can’t even describe to you – I was just like, I wish it would hurry up.”

She asked if she could make her will, and was told that if she didn’t improve in 24 hours she should. The critical state lasted 36 hours and she was in hospital for 10 days.

She is still spooked by the illness, not least by the fact that the previous year she had climbed Kilimanjaro to raise money for malaria sufferers. “It is weird, isn’t it?” she says, almost to herself.

Today, she still looks a little fragile. I offer her some of my sweets.

“I’ll have a wine gum,” she says.

“What’s wrong with jelly babies?”

“I don’t like the flour on them. It goes through us.”

Cole is about to release her second solo album, Messy Little Raindrops. The subject of the album is lost love. More explicitly, it is about being cheated on, the desire for vengeance and the recovery of self-respect. It couldn’t be more personal. The only thing missing is a namecheck for her former husband. The songs are so specific, I assume she must have written them, but they have been written for her.

On Happy Tears, she sings, “I cried when I heard you were cheating, I cried when I said I was leaving, I cried when my heart stopped believing… I cried when I slashed all your tyres, I cried when your suit hit the fire, I cried cos I knew I’d never see you again… but those were happy tears.”

Let’s talk about those lyrics, I say. She gives me a wary look, and stresses that she didn’t write them.

So she cried about the cheating?

“You’re not going to say obvious things, are you? That wouldn’t be very fun.”

Did she slash his tyres?

“No.”

Did she feel like slashing his tyres?

“Yes, sometimes.”

And did she feel like setting his suits on fire?

“Sometimes.”

“It’s all so recent,” I say. “You must still feel that anger?”

“You know what? I’ve dealt with anger for two years now, so I’m on top of it.”

It was two years ago there were first allegations of Ashley Cole’s cheating. At the time, Cheryl said it was just malicious gossip.

Did she know then that he’d been unfaithful?

“Yes.”

And she gave him another chance?

“Yes.”

Did she already know the first time, or did she learn about it through newspapers?

“I don’t know. I’m a bit numb. I’ve dealt with a lot of it. A lot of it on my own,” She’s speaking faster and louder now, and you can hear the upset in her voice. “A lot of emotion and feeling. More than anger.”

Did she feel embarrassed?

“Of course. I’m a human. I’m still a person, you know. I know to a lot of people the headlines and the stories they read are like some sick entertainment or soap opera, but it’s my life and I’m really dealing with it, and it’s really happening. It’s my real life. Of course I was embarrassed.”

The strange thing is, she’s so widely adored and loved by people who don’t know her, and yet her husband just goes off with a stranger who means nothing to him.

“I don’t think either is the case,” she says. “When you’re going through stuff or turmoil, whatever, I don’t wake up in the morning and think, ‘The world loves me.’ Nah!” She says even if she had, it wouldn’t have helped. “Nothing is much comfort at times like that. Nothing.” She pauses. “Maybe music.”

What was she listening to?

“I had…” She stops. “God, that feels really personal to tell you that… no, I won’t tell you that. I listened to an album.” What kind? “Soulful. Music is a big healer.”

One thing that emerges strongly from the new album is that Cole does not regard herself as a victim. “I have met a lot of young girls, and they said they’d watched my actions and it had inspired them. It had helped them through a situation, and that’s the best feeling ever.”

Can she trust men now?

“You know what? I haven’t had time to deal with everything yet – even to reach that point where I’m thinking like that. It’s not like I’m talking to you about something that’s in my past. It’s very present. If it had happened five years ago, it might be easier to answer your question.”

Cole always hated being talked of as a football Wag – she made it clear she had her own successful career. “Footballers’ wives are just as bad as benefit scroungers – it’s just a higher class of scrounger,” she said in 2006, soon after marrying.

At The X Factor studios, we are a few yards from Wembley Stadium, where the wives and girlfriends would turn out to watch their partners represent England. It must be a relief that she no longer has to do that, I say. “I thought ‘Wag’ was a derogatory term. It put you in the position of not being a person, just being the wife of someone, and I’m very uncomfortable with that – not in terms of going to Wembley to support your husband, but in terms of what that tag means and how you’re perceived.”

Cole is not the first woman whose footballer partner cheated on her. This year, it seems that half the England team have been on the front pages for the same thing. Why is what happened to her so common in the football world?

“Mmm,” she mutters.

“Yet all the other women have stayed with their footballers,” I persist.

And now she really is upset – whether it’s with me, or my wording, or everything we’re talking about, I don’t know. “I don’t feel it happened to me. I hate that. ‘It happened to you.’ I just hate it. It didn’t happen to me. It’s someone else’s actions. The malaria happened to me. I just hate it. Hate it. Hate the whole fucking thing.” It’s the only time in our conversation that she swears. She gulps, and chokes back a tear. “Hate this year.”

“Sorry,” I say, pathetically.

“It’s all right, there’s a new one coming.” She smiles, and recovers her calm. Look, she says, the fact that Ashley Cole is a footballer isn’t relevant. “It doesn’t matter what occupation they’ve got. When your heart is breaking, your heart’s breaking – it makes no difference what either of you do.” She returns to the partners who have stayed with their straying footballers. “You can’t judge somebody on their decision, because that’s up to them. Just for me personally, that was my choice.”

Cole, now 27, always wanted to be a successful singer. Not famous, she stresses, just successful. She grew up on a rough council estate in Newcastle. So many kids drank and took drugs and ruined themselves before they’d even embarked on adulthood. Her parents separated when she was 11, she was suspended from school twice (for fighting, and for swearing) and her brother was in regular trouble with the law. But there was always something special about young Cheryl – she won Boots’ bonniest baby competition, was named World Star Of Future Modelling at the age of six and appeared in TV commercials for British Gas.

When she made her first appearance on Popstars: The Rivals, the show that created Girls Aloud, she looked like a pretty little street fighter. She had crooked teeth, a bit of a belly, and was at home in her tracky bottoms. I ask if she’s seen the oft-repeated TV show documenting her transformation from “chav” to “people’s princess”. She smiles. “I still am very street – I just have nicer clothes. I’m not ashamed of that. I love that. You know what, a lot of people that don’t have that are worse off because they’re not street-smart.” How did she become the people’s princess? “I have no idea. I find it all a bit… weird.”

Of course, she says, she was different when she won – back then, she was a teenager; now, she’s a woman. Has her character changed? “No, I was the same as I am now. I might have chilled out a bit and grown up a lot.” Was she angry then? “I definitely had teenage syndrome.”

And some. Just after winning Popstars: The Rivals, she almost killed her embryonic career. In January 2003, Cole got involved in a fight with a nightclub toilet attendant and was charged with racially aggravated assault and assault occasioning actual bodily harm. The prosecution said she was “high on fame” while the judge described the attack as “an unpleasant piece of drunken violence”. Cole pleaded self-defence. The jury cleared her of the racist element, but found her guilty of assault occasioning actual bodily harm. She was ordered to pay £500 to her victim, £3,000 in prosecution costs and sentenced to 120 hours’ community service.

Did getting into trouble back then strengthen her in the long run? “Yes, 100%. It wasn’t just a little bit of trouble, it was a big thing.”

With the media storm, did she think, “God, my career’s over”?

“No, my career hadn’t really started. It was a few weeks in, and I actually thought, ‘This is the real ugly side to fame.’ People say the street and whatever, but the beauty of the street is that people are really loyal and honest. Brutally so. And this was my first experience with the opposite.”

Did she think that if she’d been at home, nothing would have been made of it? “Nothing would have been made of it. That’s how you’re bought up – to stick up for yourself.”

This mix of the hard and soft is one of the most fascinating things about Cole. Often, depending on the context, she is described as one or the other. One day she might be the stoic saint coping with marital adversity or the Mother Teresa of The X Factor, smiling beatifically as her kids perform for her; the next she might be the hard-nosed bitch who lip-syncs her way through a “live” TV performance while her X Factor wannabes have to do it for real, and who is happy to advertise L’Oréal shampoo while wearing hair extensions.

Both versions, she says, are a caricature. “I’m not saintly at all. I do have a toughness. That’s what’s embedded in us, to be tough.”

Can she live a normal life when she goes home? She laughs. “I can act normally, and I can go out, but people around you don’t act normally. If it was normal, I’d go out and have my dinner and nobody would be video-phoning me eating my dinner.”

Has she heard that young girls have started stapling their cheeks together to recreate her dimples? She looks as if she could be sick. “Yeah, I heard. Oh God. What on Earth am I’m supposed to say about that?”

Don’t do it?

“Yes. Don’t. It’s funny, because having dimples is something I always struggled with growing up.”

It’s late afternoon. The dressing room is dimly lit and largely empty – no photos, no good luck cards, just huge tubs of Butterkist popcorn and bottled water, Diet Coke, a cigarette packet and a box of matches. She gives Blue a quick cuddle, stuffs some Butterkist in her mouth and I ask a series of random questions.

“If Simon got down on his knees tomorrow and said, ‘Marry me, baby,’ what would you say to him?”

“What’s the punchline?”

“There are rumours that you have fallen out recently.”

“I don’t know where these came from. If anything, we’re the closest we’ve ever been.”

“He’s helped you when you’ve been down?”

“Why has everything got to be gloom and doom? We have funny conversations. He checks I’m OK, he reads me really, really well. I can’t hide anything from him.”

“Why did you hire a group of singing dwarves for his birthday present?”

“That was great, wasn’t it?” She laughs. “What d’you get Simon Cowell for his birthday? Singing musical dwarves! You want some popcorn?”

“How will your beloved Newcastle be affected by the Tory cuts?”

“I was brought up Labour and it is pretty shit times. But I also think pop music helps that. And that’s what I’m going to focus on – being a pop star. I’m not a politician.”

“The perfect politician’s answer,” I say. “But you are still Labour in your heart?”

“Yes, absolutely.”

She stands up to wash her hands. “Sorry, I’m all sticky.” For the first time I notice how tiny and slight she is – skinny legs, virtually no bottom and a giant tattoo across her lower back.

“What is that tattoo?” I shout a little too loudly.

“It’s just times in my life, I suppose. More specific times when you felt certain things or whatever…”

How many tattoos has she got?

“Three.”

Which is her favourite?

“I like the one on my hand, the little one. Just an abstract thing… it’s cold in here.” She seems to have forgotten two of her other tattoos – one on her bottom and the other on the back of her neck saying Mrs Cole.

Does she want to get rid of any of her tattoos?

“No… I’m not ashamed of anything. I’ve got nothing to rub away.”

There have been stories of yet another tattoo, dedicated to the dancer Derek Hough. Soon after she and Ashley Cole separated, the rumour mill went into overdrive – Hough was her new boyfriend, Hough was a cover for her new boyfriend.

I ask if she really is going out with him. She replies with a fabulous evasion. “I know one thing for sure. I have spoken about everything that’s been written about just to put everything to bed, close the door on this year, close the door on this chapter of my life, and start afresh. And from now on in I will never talk about my personal life again.”

What is it she most wanted to say?

“Not want to say. I had to say. I just wanted to say, right, this is from the horse’s mouth. And then I can move on, and try to have as much sanity and normality as possible.”

Outside the studio, there are paparazzi perched on their ladders trying to peer in. Is she aware of them? “Yes, it’s sick. You know the worst thing is, when I was in intensive care, they were outside the hospital. There’s people in that hospital dying, there are families going up there to sit with people for the last hours of their lives and there are 30 photographers outside.”

Perhaps it’s impossible to reconcile such a high-profile career with a desire for privacy. Does she ever think, “Sod this for a game of soldiers, I’m getting out?”

“Yeah, I’ve thought that a few times, but I’m not going to let them ruin my dreams. I want to make music.”

I do think she is being sincere, and that she does want to get stuff off her chest. Yet I’m equally aware that she is promoting a new album, which focuses on the breakdown of a relationship. For what it’s worth, there is certainly no sign of a boyfriend. My feeling is she’s still trying to get her life back together.

I tell her about a 10-year-old girl who insists on calling her Cheryl Tweedy because it is empowering and Tweedy is her true name. No, she says, she’s staying as Cole, and that’s the truly empowering thing to do. “I don’t feel sentimental about the name. If I went back to being Cheryl Tweedy, I’d be… I’m not ashamed of my marriage, it’s a period in my life. And I am Cheryl Cole. That’s how I feel.” Cheryl Tweedy is who she was as a little girl, she says, and that’s a lifetime away. And Cheryl Cole is who she’s been most successful as, and Cheryl Cole sounds a cool name, and Cheryl Cole is a great brand. Why shouldn’t she keep hold of the positives from her marriage?

If she’s sticking as Cheryl Cole, does she think that one day she might get back together with Ashley? This time she opens her mouth and it just stays open in shock or maybe horror. “We’ve been divorced. That’s a pretty big ending. Maybe we can be friends… one day.”

Does she think he regrets lousing up their marriage? “I can’t speak for him. You’ll have to ask him that.” Then she grins. “Maybe ring his publicist.”

• Cheryl Cole’s second solo album, Messy Little Raindrops, is released on 1 November.

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The singer and X Factor judge decided to spice up her colour shortly after finding out that her divorce from the footballer is likely to be officially confirmed in the High Court this week, according to The Sun.

Cole’s lawyers will reportedly apply for a decree absolute today (18th October) after having been granted a decree nisi six weeks ago.

According to a source, the ‘Parachute’ singer’s new style is showing the world: “I’m back!” and when she came into the X Factor studion with her new style, apparently she said: “Right, let’s kick some arse!”

Cheryl Cole will be talking about her divorce, something she didn’t mention in her autobiography, with Piers Morgan on his show ‘Life Stories’. It will air on 23rd October at 10pm.

What do you think of Cheryl Cole’s new colour?

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The X Factor judge told Piers Morgan that her split from England footballer Ashley Cole had left her heartbroken, but she insisted she will ‘always love’ him.

The 27-year-old told Morgan’s ITV1 show Life Stories last night that she was at a loss to explain why the relationship had collapsed.

Miss Cole, 27, revealed she still regularly speaks to him, despite his infidelity during their three-and-a-half year marriage. She was granted a divorce in September.

The singer was in tears as she said she still believed he was ‘a genuinely nice guy’, adding: ‘Once we get over this obstacle, I hope we can be friends again. A part of me will always love Ashley.’

She explained: ‘Looking back on it, I feel numb. We had a great marriage and a fantastic wedding day but I don’t know where it went wrong.

‘To this day I still question that.’

Miss Cole also revealed that she wrote a will after doctors told her she was on the brink of death with malaria.

The X Factor star said she had been given just 24 hours to live as she fought the illness in hospital.

Newcastle-born Miss Cole had to miss the ‘boot camp’ stage of the current series of X Factor after falling ill with malaria in July. She was only fit enough to return once the live shows began last weekend.

Miss Cole was joined by her mother Joan and Girls Aloud bandmates Kimberley Walsh and Nicola Roberts, who all wept during the interview as she discussed her battle against the disease.

Doctors had told the star she was close to death after she contracted the illness during a trip to Tanzania.

She admitted drinking three vodkas the night before a photoshoot which left her feeling like she had ‘the worst hangover’.

It turned out to be the start of her struggle with the illness.

In the interview, for Piers Morgan’s Life Stories, she admitted drawing up a will and considering how to divide up her possessions among friends and family.

She told Morgan: ‘I thought I was going to die, I actually thought I was going to die. I thought if I’m going to die I want to die soon because I was in so much pain’.

A source on the programme said: ‘She was given 24 hours to survive and told if her condition did not improve she would die.’

Miss Cole, who earned £1.2million for the last series of The X Factor, also
discussed her relationship with Simon Cowell, adding: ‘I have a connection with him like no one else.

‘He is one of the most important people in my life. He just gets me.’

However she confessed she missed being a ‘regular’ girl.

‘Sometimes I feel completely trapped,’ she said. ‘I just can’t go back to Newcastle and put on tracksuit bottoms and Ugg boots.’

The interview will be broadcast on ITV on October 23.

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The ‘Fight For This Love’ singer completely leaves out any reference to Ashley in her 253-page book Through My Eyes, and even claims that she had “the best times of [her] life” in the last two years, according to The Sun.

Cheryl also apparently writes in detail about Derek Hough, who she describes as “the best” and “a sweetheart”, and will.i.am, who she reveals is “passionate to the core”.

Similarly, while there are several pictures of Cheryl with Hough and will.i.am in the autobiography, there are no photos of the 27-year-old with her former husband.

The X Factor judge refuses to divulge anything about her battle with malaria, although she does indicate that she wants to spend more time in the US after she moves out of her Surrey mansion.

She writes: “I’ve spent a bit of time in LA over the last couple of years… I love it that the sun shines all the time.”

Through My Eyes is released on Thursday.

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As part of the couple’s divorce settlement the Chelsea footballer is keeping the £6million mansion.

However, Ashley is currently sharing a flat with a pal and has allegedly become impatient to move back into his home.

The X Factor judge has confirmed that she will vacate the Surrey mansion at the end of next month.

A friend of the Chelsea defender told The People: “Ashley has made no secret of his wish to move back into the house and he was becoming increasingly frustrated about the delay.

“Ashley realised Cheryl had spent a lot of time in Los Angeles recently and is now busy with X Factor but he decided to try and force the issue a little.

“He is relieved to learn his lawyer has received an assurance that Cheryl will move out at the end of next month.”

When the Girls Aloud singer has been in the UK in recent months she has lived at the house with her mum Joan Callaghan.

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Cheryl Cole will open up about her marriage breakdown in an intimate interview with Piers Morgan.

The X Factor star is following in the footsteps of fellow judges Simon Cowell and Dannii Minogue to appear on Morgan’s successful Life Stories series.

Cheryl has promised to reveal all about her heartbreak over Ashley’s infidelities, her malaria battle and the two men in her life, Derek Hough and Will.I.Am. The hour-long interview will air on December 11 after the X Factor semi-final.

A source close to the Promise This singer said she was Piers’ top choice of interviewee: “Every time Cheryl sees Piers, she says he pesters her non-stop to agree to do the chat. He’s spent months trying to convince her and in the end she gave in over a dinner hosted at Simon’s house in LA.

“Afterwards Cheryl joked that half the reason she agreed was just to get him off her back. But on a serious note, she says she feels ready now to lay a few ghosts to rest. It’s been a tumultuous year and as it draws to a close she wants to use this one interview to put everything out there in her own words then slam the door shut on 2010.”

Piers has also revealed that Cowell wants both Cheryl and Pussycat Doll Nicole Scherzinger to join him on the judging panel of American X Factor next year. “He’ll love a couple of feisty brunettes fighting over him,” Morgan said.

In January, Piers flies to New York to replace veteran broadcaster Larry King on CNN in a reported £5.5m deal.

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CHERYL Cole spoke out over her divorce from love rat husband Ashley – and admitted: “I feel betrayed.”

The X Factor judge said: “Yes, definitely I do, but I’ve got to take everything that’s happened and learn from it. I accept that that’s a chapter of my life that’s finished.

“And I’ve just got to be grateful that I’ve got so many good things going on. I have. And there’s no children, you know?”

Cheryl, 27, added: “Some people’s lives fall apart. Of course, it’s heartbreaking, but it’s not anything remotely like it could have been and I’m very, very thankful for that.”

The Sun told how the Girls Aloud star divorced cheating England ace Ashley, 29, at London’s High Court last Friday – citing his “unreasonable behaviour”.

But Geordie Cheryl says she has moved on and is ALREADY thinking about having children in the future.

She said: “That’s definitely something I want to achieve. It’s the toughest job in the world – but I know it must be the most rewarding too. I’m ready now. I’m 27. I’m a woman, not a girl any more.

“Thinking about yourself constantly isn’t so healthy. I suppose that’s the point of having children, isn’t it? Being able to live your life through them instead of you, having them be your motivation?

“That’s the ‘right’ thing, I’m thinking – when you love someone more than you love yourself. That’s what I think about my mum.”

Cheryl spoke to October’s Vogue magazine, which is out on Thursday and has her on the cover.

The X Factor judge, who yesterday jetted back to Britain after a stay in Los Angeles, also spoke about her career and determination.

She said: “I’ve got a lot of mental discipline. Even if I’m knackered I keep myself going no matter what.

“I have to perform. I have to deliver. Night-time, that’s when my brain starts ticking over.

“I’m frightened of my mind at night. I find myself racing, racing, racing. Sometimes I wake up and think, ‘What was that about’? It’s so vivid.”

Cheryl added: “I’d never want to give up what I do – I love my music, I love being a judge on The X Factor.”

The beauty vowed to Skype pal Derek Hough, 25, in America every day. He has comforted her after her marriage split.

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The Girls Aloud star is said to be relieved to have achieved a “divorce with dignity”.

A pal said: “It’s been a horrible few months for her, but at last she can look forward to the future.

“She feels like a massive weight has been lifted off her shoulders. She thinks it’s sad the way things have turned out, but life goes on.”

Neither Cheryl, 27, nor Chelsea left-back Ashley, 27, are expected to be present when their four-year marriage is officially declared over at the High Court in London today.

The X Factor judge is in Los Angeles while England star Ashley will face Bulgaria at Wembley tonight. Their case – numbered FD10D02550 – will be the first of 29 to be rubber-stamped by District Judge Christopher Simmonds. In a break from protocol, only their initials – CAC v AC – were listed yesterday at the court, unlike the other couples’ cases. Their decree nisi is to be announced at 10am in Court 9 of the Principal Registry of the High Court’s Family Division in High Holborn, central London.

The divorce was pushed through after the couple, each reckoned to be worth around £10million, struck a deal on property, money and other assets.

In the absence of any prenuptial agreement, it is believed they will split everything 50-50, including their £6million Surrey mansion. Cheryl is expected to sell the nine-bedroomed marital home they shared, divide the proceeds and move to a smaller house. She will also keep the couple’s two dogs, boxers Buster and Coco. Ashley earns about £6million a year from Chelsea and sponsorship deals. Cheryl has raked in £5million with Girls Aloud and has a new £1.7million-a-year contract for her TV role as an X Factor judge.

Ashley is said to have made arrangements for tenants to vacate the apartment he owns in Friern Barnet, North London, in order to sell it.

He and Cheryl moved into the plush apartment in 2004. It was while they were living there that he proposed and they then moved to Surrey.

Cheryl’s solicitor Joyce Smyth, of London firm Smyth Barkham, is believed to have been given instructions that the divorce should be settled “quickly and amicably”.

A source said: “It turned out to be quite straightforward and there was no excessive wrangling on either side. Both Cheryl and Ashley wanted to make it as easy for each other as possible and just draw a line under things.

“With that spirit of co-operation, it wasn’t too difficult to thrash out an agreement which both parties were happy with.

“Of course it helps that Cheryl is a rich woman in her own right, with her earning potential set to soar over the next few years.”

Cheryl, who is now dating dancer Derek Hough, was desperate to be free of the marriage before returning to the UK next month for the live X Factor shows.

She will be represented today by Smyth and barrister Lucy Stone QC. In Cole’s corner will be his solicitor Graham Shear, of Berwin Leighton Paisner.

The divorce papers state Cheryl confronted her husband over claims of his infidelities and that “he admitted it”.

Cheryl, who announced she was separating from Ashley on Twitter in February, insisted on the process moving as quickly as possible.

It is believed the star, who lodged divorce papers at the High Court in May, citing Ashley’s “unreasonable behaviour”, told lawyers to work around the clock to end the marriage. The divorce will be greeted with relief by her mother Joan who had feared there was a danger she might take Ashley back.

Before she filed the papers he had allegedly been sending her texts and she replied with a message of congratulations when Chelsea won the FA Cup in May.

The divorce ends what appeared to be a fairytale match in July 2006 between showbiz and soccer.

The beginning of the end came in December 2007 when hairdresser Aimee Walton became the first of five girls to brand Cole a love-cheat.

South London mum-of-one Aimee, then 22, alleged he boasted she should be “privileged” to be with him.

She said: “It was a big mistake and I regret it. I feel so sorry for Cheryl.

“I’d drunk too much and went along with what he wanted. Now I feel really guilty.” Cheryl forgave him after taking a trip to Thailand with her Girls Aloud pals to clear her head. But more was to come.

In February blonde model Sonia Wild, 28, came forward to tell how she had allegedly received X-rated photos from Cole by text in June 2009.

He denied sending them, claiming he had given the phone to a friend who had done it by mistake.

Within days more revelations emerged. Sonia, from Hull, claimed: “I recognised him straight away from the pictures I’d seen of him with his wife Cheryl – but couldn’t resist having a bit of fun. It was exciting getting a picture of a star.”

Liverpool football secretary Vicki Gough, 30, then alleged she was sent more than 300 sex texts by Cole, including nude pictures and some of him in a pair of white underpants.

Cole told her: “I beg u to keep this between us x.” He then added: “Please delete all texts – I’ll have no balls left.”

She claims he slept with her during two clandestine meetings at Chelsea’s team hotel. Vicki said: “He was petrified of getting caught. That must have been the thrill.”

American civil servant Ann Corbitt, 28, was next to dish the dirt after meeting the player in a bar during Chelsea’s tour of the US last summer.

And brunette Alexandra Taylor, 27, of Blackpool, hammered another nail into the coffin of the Coles’ marriage.

She claimed Cole had sex with her in 2004 during the early days of his relationship with Cheryl. She said the star bedded her at his flat in the same block where Cheryl lived after finding success with Girls Aloud.

She said: “We were both drunk, started kissing and one thing led to another. He was so off his face with drink. It was really lousy.”

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Clemmie Moodie says:

Four years, one month and 19 days after making her catastrophically bad taste in men official – and marrying Ashley Cole – Cheryl is a divorcee. Unburdened from the shackles of a sleazy foot-baller, Ms Tweedy can go back to being our sweet-heart. But whilst a nation rejoices, we should remember that Cheryl is still hurting.

If every relationship has its controller, then poor Chezza most definitely acted dummy to Ashley’s ventriloquist. In almost every photo of them, her adoration was plain to see. Cheryl would regularly gush about her “talented, gorgeous” man.

But he, in contrast couldn’t even be bothered to schlep down to the (London) X Factor studios to support his wife.

So when he allegedly cheated with hairdresser Aimee Walton in 2008, Cheryl stuck by him.

And, for a nerve-biting few days, it looked like she might forgive him a second, third and, er, fourth time when fresh infidelity revelations emerged. The singer was left with little choice but to end her marriage – no matter how much she loved, and, probably, still loves, Ashley.

If she hadn’t, Cheryl realised she would have lost all credibility and respect from the public. Inspired by her L’Oreal ads, she’s washed that man out of her hair. Let’s hope her next romance has a glossy ending; because she’s worth it.

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