• Prev
• Next

Cheryl Cole warned: Don't blow it now

The Girls Aloud star risks rubbing fans up the wrong way with her sniping

Geordie Cheryl Cole enjoys speaking her mind

X Factor judge Cheryl Cole’s been warned not to go back to her ‘gobby old ways’ after publicly laying into a string of celebrities.

There are fears in Cheryl’s camp that she could be alienating her army of new-found fans with a string of bitchy comments.

‘Cheryl needs to quickly rein herself in,’ says an insider.

‘In the early days of Girls Aloud she was written off as  a gobby, bitchy and immature street brawler. But since becoming a judge on The X Factor it seemed she’d gained diplomacy skills.

‘She didn’t even rise to the bait when Charlotte Church called her a rubbish judge. So now that Cheryl seems on the verge of getting back to her old ways by slagging off everyone from Posh to Alexa Chung in interviews, everyone’s nervous.’

Cheryl, 25, slated former friend Victoria Beckham, 34, for not getting in touch with her when news of husband Ashley’s cheating broke last year, then said her fashion line was for ‘older women’.

‘I take my position as a role model very seriously now. I can’t behave the way I did,’ Cheryl said recently, but there’s a feeling that she’s grown weary of hiding her true nature.

‘The reality is that she’s been on her best behaviour for the past few months,’ says our insider. ‘She’s no saint. She swears like a trooper, is a chain smoker and will lay into anyone in an argument.

'She was clever enough to know that she had to present herself well, but now that she’s on the cover of Vogue and the offers are flooding in, there’s a belief that it’s starting to go to her head.'

Media guru Max Clifford tells NOW : ‘Cheryl’s had an amazing year and inevitably when someone’s achieved such success, things change. More people will be out to criticise her and she’ll be asked for her views on everything. She needs to be careful about anything she says about anyone.’

See the full story about Cheryl Cole in Now magazine dated 26 January 2009 - out now!