Cheryl Cole has always tended to keep her private life just that – private.
In her new autobiography, Cheryl: My Story (out 11 October), she has finally opened up about her family life, her marriage and her career. In the latest extract to be published in The Sun, Cheryl talks about her troubled big brother.
Cheryl reveals the pain of having to see her older brother Andrew in and out of jail ever since he was convicted of stabbing someone at just 15,
“When Andrew was 15 he stabbed someone in a fight. This guy had punched Gillian [Cheryl’s sister] in a pub. Everyone was in pieces. People were talking about prison, and I was laying awake again, worrying myself sick,” Cheryl writes.
“When Andrew left prison I assumed being locked up would have taught him a lesson and that he’d put his criminal past behind him and start a new life.
“Unfortunately by the time of my wedding, he was in prison again. I went to see him in prison before the wedding. ‘Why can’t you stop,’ I begged him. ‘You’re devastating the whole family. Why can’t you change your ways?’
Cheryl reveals that despite now having fame and fortune she couldn’t do anything to help her brother,
“He shrugged and looked me in the face, ‘I’m too far gone.’ I left in floods of tears. I had the means to help him now if he only wanted to be helped – but he clearly didn’t. That hurt like hell.
“He had 50 convictions by now, and was as addicted to alcohol and drugs as he was to crime. His life was bleak and hopeless. But I still dared to hope he might want to reform one day.”