As we reported earlier today, rumours were rife overnight that former X Factor judge Cheryl Cole was set to become Gary Barlow’s Judges’ Houses helper…

Which of course, up until the rumour began about Cheryl helping Gazzer out, had been a role that Gary’s Take That band mate Robbie Williams had been set to carry out.

However, this morning, X Factor guru Simon Cowell took to Twitter to confirm Cheryl’s return to the show, tweeting to her, “Welcome back Cheryl. X”.

The Sun had previously stated that Gary had “hatched the plan to bring back Cheryl behind the music mogul’s back,” however, given that I suspect nobody breaks wind without Simon’s say so on the show, I would think it’s safer to say that he okayed it from the get go…

And of course, having Cheryl back on the show does demonstrate that the bad feeling between Cheryl and Simon – who ditched her rather ingloriously from X Factor USA – is now water under the musical bridge.

So, it seems that it’s now for definite that Cheryl will be joining Gary for the Judges’ Houses round at a stately home in Northants, where he’ll call on her advice to whittle down which of his Overs acts her intends to take through to the live shows.

Just a couple of hours ago, Gary tweeted, “What a beautiful day, just had lunch with my family, now heading to #XFactor judges houses #exciting”

But with the news of Cheryl’s appointment of Gary’s helper of course comes the obvious question – why isn’t Robbie doing it?

Well, I would personally guess that it’s because his wife Ayda is due to have their first baby any time now, so I would think that Robbie will want to be close to her so he can see their baby born.

So, will you be glad to see Cheryl back, even in a ‘diminished’ capacity?