Born in Newcastle Upon Tyne, Cheryl Cole grew up performing as a dancer in recitals and on TV. She also appeared in a few television commercials including one with her younger brother Garry. In addition to Garry, Cheryl has another two brothers, Andrew and Joseph and a sister, Gillian.

At the age of 16 Cheryl auditioned on Tyne Tees Television “Gimme 5” where she was looking for sponsors to get into the Royal Ballet School. Cheryl beat over 9,000 others to secure a place at the school.

Cheryl was working as a waitress when she decided to audition for ITV’s Popstars: The Rivals and at her first audition, Cheryl sang S Club 7’s Have You Ever. She got the thumbs up from all three Judges to go through to the next round of auditions to be held in London. On the 30th November in 2002, Cheryl was announced as a winner alongside Nadine Coyle, Sarah Harding, Nicola Roberts and Kimberley Walsh and Girls Aloud was born.

Girls Aloud hold the record for the shortest time between formation and reaching number one in the
UK Charts with their platinum-selling début single Sound of the Underground. Guinness World Records
lists them as “Most Successful Reality TV Group” in the 2007 edition, and the group also hold the record for “Most Consecutive Top Ten Entries in the UK by a Female Group” in the 2008 edition, with 15 consecutive top tens from Sound of the Underground in 2002 through to Walk This Way in 2007. Girls Aloud have since extended this record to 18 consecutive Top 10s from debut - the most recent being Can’t Speak French which reached number 9 in March 2008.

During the ITV2 Passions of Girls Aloud series, Cheryl auditioned as a street dancer to gain a part in the
music video for will.i.am’s single Heartbreaker. She won the part and was later asked to sing vocals on
the track. The song was released in the UK on 5 May 2008, but had already entered the top ten on download sales and peaked at number 4 in the UK Singles Chart.

Cheryl’s TV appearances also include co-presenting The Friday Night Project alongside Kimberley Walsh
and Sarah Harding, Comic Relief Does The Apprentice and Gordan Ramsay’s The F-Word.

On being named as the new judge on The X Factor, Cheryl said “The rest of the girls have said they’re
right behind me, which is really important for me as it will be weird to be on the other side of the fence this time. So whilst we get started on the next album, it will be brilliant to be a judge on The X Factor.”