Cheryl Cole: 'Louis just took cheques'

Cheryl Cole: 'Louis just took cheques'
Cheryl Cole: 'Louis just took cheques' (Image credit: PA Wire/Press Association Images)

Cheryl Cole has criticised Louis Walsh for taking cheques despite his 'zero involvement' during the beginning of her career. The Girls Aloud star, 28, told Marie Claire magazine she'd been naive when Girls Aloud won ITV1 show Pop Stars: The Rivals, with Louis as one of the judges. "Louis Walsh had come out publicly and said, 'They're all fat. They all need to lose weight'. And the record label sent us all to have training... but we were just thinking they were doing us a favour at the time. We were so deluded," she told the magazine. "We worked like crazy in those days. We didn't stop for breath... We never had management. Louis claimed to be our manager, but he never did it. "We didn't talk to him or anything like that. He just took a cheque. Literally, we didn't have management," she said. Cheryl criticised Louis for having 'zero involvement' with the management of Girls Aloud, and added: "Oh yeah, he took the cheques." The former X Factor judge also confessed she had dreamt about marrying Prince Harry. Harry was said to have revealed his affection for Cheryl when he was reported to have told then X Factor winner Joe McElderry in 2009 he was 'so jealous that you got to spend weeks with Cheryl'. Asked by a fan in a Q&A session for the magazine whether she knew Harry 'fancies you', the former X Factor judge admitted: "I do!". Cheryl added: "I love Prince Harry. Actually, I had a dream last night I married Prince Harry and was a real-life princess. It's true."

Patrick McLennan

Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix. 


An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.