Cheryl Cole has admitted that she was shocked when Simon Cowell offered her the chance to sit on The X Factor judging panel and added that though it was a scary experience, the role has increased her self-confidence massively.

The Times of India quote Chezza as saying: “Frankly, it has come as a shock to me.

“It is a really scary thing. Why would they give it to me? They don’t know me and I’ve got this heavy Geordie accent.”

She went on: “My turn as star panellist on The X Factor UK may have blinded the nation. But it was nowhere close to as much shock as it came to me.

When I walked in that room, I didn’t know a single person apart from the girl doing my hair, who I loved, and Louis [Walsh], which was a different story altogether.”

However, the job soon changed things for the Girls Aloud singer. She added: “I began to feel a change in myself by sitting in the judge’s hotseat.

“I just became more confident. It all became slightly crazy and I think it could’ve done me head in if I’d allowed it to. But for me, this was about conquering a new fear of doing something by myself.”