Skip to main contentSkip to footer

Cheryl Fernandez-Versini on breakdown of first marriage: 'I crumbled in private'

Share this:

Some 15 months after their romantic secret wedding, Cheryl Fernandez-Versini and her husband Jean Bernard still seem to be in honeymoon mode. Her current happiness seems to have given her the strength to talk about the pain of going through the breakdown of her first marriage to Ashley Cole.

Speaking to InStyle magazine, the Geordie pop star said: "To be honest, I coped in public and crumbled in private."

cheryl ashley

Cheryl has said she couldn't eat or sleep properly as her first marriage failed

It was reported that the footballer had been unfaithful, but Cheryl stood by him before ultimately filing for divorce in 2010. She received criticism for not ending their four-year union sooner including from close friends.

"It’s funny – those who didn't understand my actions at the time have now had that happen to them and they get it,’ she explained.

"A friend of mine told me her husband was having an affair and she said, 'I understand everything that must have been going through your head. But what I will never understand is how you had to face the world'."

Cheryl © Photo: Getty Images

The pop star is now happily married to a handsome Frenchman

With handsome French restaurateur JB by her side now, it's obviously much easier to face the world. He clearly dotes on her, taking her to Italy in June for a romantic birthday surprise.

Cheryl revealed that she'd asked to go to a nice Italian restaurant for dinner and found herself being whisked off to one actually in the country itself. Then just last week, the couple were the picture of happiness at Ant and Dec's joint birthday party.

The 32-year-old recently revealed that she has made a deliberate decision to keep their relationship out of the limelight.

"I have to have something that's for me," she explained. "I am aware that everyone wants to know what is going on but I am not going to say anything for my sanity."