Girls uninterrupted

The music would have been enough (18 consecutive Top 10 singles), but then there's the X Factor, the celebrity boyfriends, the tears... And now even Coldplay want to write a song for them. Can anyone resist Girls Aloud?
Girls Aloud
Female pop group Girls Aloud. Photograph: Alastair Grant Alastair Grant/AP

"I love Girls Aloud. I'm obsessed with Girls Aloud. I've been trying to write them a song and I can't come up with anything good enough. They're amazing. It's the combination of extreme physical attraction and fantastic music. I think they might be the ultimate form of life"

Chris Martin, April 2008

Girls Aloud listen to the above eulogy from the swooning Coldplay frontman and respond in the only way they know how, with a typhoon of loud, sweary, cackling squeals in a spectrum of comedy accents. 'Well, he better keep wehrkin' on a song, then, hadn't he?' hoots Nicola Roberts, 22, the way only Scousers can. 'Pen a bit harder!'

It's becoming, now, ridiculous. The only people who don't love Girls Aloud are the ones, surely, who don't love life itself, or a rollicking good laugh, or snogging someone stupefyingly gorgeous. They're the living embodiment of the young, good-time, carefree UK provinces (or how it appears to be when you're dancing, at midnight, with the glitterball overhead) and simultaneously as fantasy-glam untouchable as a shimmering marble sculpture called Class-Pop Goddesses Rool OK on a gigantic five-pronged plinth. Today they're where they usually are, in a photo studio in London; hair dryers humming, ironing boards steaming, three rails of clothes glimmering with this year's designer choices: Juicy Couture, Julien Macdonald, Jasmine Di Milo, D&G. (Three years ago, on tour, they were still wearing Dorothy Perkins.) Here's Sarah, 26, the Party Girl from Manchester (known to her chums as Hardcore Harding), all enormous sky-blue eyes, yet to have the make-up artist negotiate four large facial spots. 'It's because I'm on a detox,' she announces, unfeasibly, having just eaten beans on toast after a butter chicken curry the night before and now slewing a cappuccino. 'Well, I've been drinking water,' she protests. 'And not going out on the lash as much and taking my milk thistle. And I was better off being toxic!'

Girls Aloud, these days, are a sponsorship magnet, their best-known deals with Sunsilk, KitKat, Ultimo underwear (Sarah alone) and Samsung (with Nintendo pending) providing a new-found considerable wealth. Sarah now owns three properties; in Manchester, north London and 'the countryside', where she's just exchanged on a large converted bungalow. 'You've got to think about investments 'cos we're not gonna be around forever,' she grins. 'We've all been quite shrewd. And I still have my values. I'll look at a Fendi handbag for £1,700, think: "I love it", open it up, look at the price tag - "Fuck off, you can get five pairs of Gucci shoes for that!"'

Girls Aloud are both exactly the same as the day they were invented on Pop Stars: The Rivals on 30 November 2002 and heroically unrecognisable. They are now the most successful girl group in UK history, with 18 consecutive Top 10 singles, a record now set to extend through their latest euphoric glitter-pop single 'The Promise', while their forthcoming fifth studio album sees a song written by the Pet Shop Boys, the beguiling 'The Loving Kind'. (The Pet Shop Boys' own forthcoming album is produced by Girls Aloud's glam-pop production alchemists Xenomania.) For Louis Walsh, appointed Girls Aloud manager after the TV series finished, it must be a galling story. For two years he ignored his new charges (they remember speaking to Louis on the phone 'twice'), the girls - then aged 16 to 22 - managing themselves and making musical choices with Xenomania. For Louis, it's the 21st-century girl-group equivalent of turning down the Beatles. Kimberley Walsh, 26, the Sensible One from Birmingham, smiles serenely. 'Should Louis apologise? I think an apology always helps.' Nicola Roberts, meanwhile, 22, the Miserable One, is no longer miserable. Single for the first time since 16, she's transformed into the band giggler and is 'ready for single-life carnage!' It's a new-found confidence, which means she's finally prepared to stand out even further from the others, be happy in the skin she's in, which is not so much pale as Dulux Matt Chalk White.

'I've never let myself be seen as this white, but I just thought: fuck it,' she smiles, twinkly dark-blue eyes illuminated by an all-new copper bob. 'This is how I was born. They look like they've just come off a beach and I look like I've been beamed down.'

Nadine Coyle, meanwhile (23, the Voice), still undergoes persistent tabloid speculation that she is in some way separated from the other girls, exacerbated by her move last year to Los Angeles, where she now owns a beach-bar business run by her northern Irish family (who moved simultaneously to nearby Santa Monica). Currently renovating the 1912 bar building, this year she's been learning about 'bellowed ceilings'. Perched on the studio sofa, her hair is bouncing around in rollers the size of soup tins.

'All the stories are the least of my worries - I'm so used to it,' she chirps. 'There's never been anybody trying to get away from the band, because this is what we all wanna do. If you didn't, what are you doing sitting here? But I would rather they wrote about that, or me being thin or me being fat or any of that stuff, than write about an actual problem someone's actually going through.'

This year the ever-fantastical Girls Aloud story has been dominated by the real-life story of Cheryl Cole, 25, the Star, whose marriage to Chelsea and England footballer Ashley Cole became several weeks' worth of front-page tabloid news this January after a 22-year-old hairdresser sold a story detailing a one-night stand with a chaotically drunken Ashley. Cheryl's response was swift and emphatic: she publicly declared she'd known for weeks, but would stand by her man 'and not let this woman destroy our marriage'. Further allegations from other women followed and for weeks thereafter at least two generations of British women trumpeted their opinion on 'Trashley' Cole across radio stations, TV shows, internet forums and newspaper columns, some of which accused Cheryl of 'betraying' womankind after a statement the previous year saying she'd definitely leave a cheater (she'd been cheated on before). What followed was a keep-out portcullis of silence clanging around the once cheerfully outspoken Cheryl Cole as she took the rest of this year to recover; she shunned Ashley for months and a dramatic weight loss ensued, but now she's almost her normal size (which is to say tiny and 5ft 3in), and spent her summer holidays with Ashley on the Costa del Sol.

Today is the very first time Cheryl has publicly mentioned her marriage troubles, and she is understandably cautious. She has, obviously, stood by her man, but another round of similar statements will only reignite the same furore. Legs up on the studio sofa, she's wearing an orange knitted top and pale-blue flared denims, hair also in soup-tin rollers, and is wearing no make-up whatsoever.

'After the whole... marriage situation,' she begins, her familiar Geordie burr dropping dramatically on the word 'marriage', 'I realised I've always been quite open about my private life, because it's in my nature to be honest. And when all of that happened, it blew up in my face. Now I won't be speaking about my relationship or marriage as openly. Because it gives people the right, I suppose, to talk about it and have an opinion on it. I learned a big lesson. That my career and my personal life should be definitely kept separate. I always had the thing of: "If you're just open and honest you can't ever be wrong" - that's just your opinion or that's just what's happening in your life. Who can tell you you're wrong? But when all that happened I was: "Whoa, maybe it's not such a good idea."'

She and Ashley are, she notes, 'fine' and she fondles the rings she finally feels able to wear again: her platinum and diamond wedding ring resting beneath a spectacular square, enormous single yellow jewel on a platinum band. 'This is actually my first anniversary present - it's a yellow diamond,' she smiles. 'It was too big for a long time [when she lost weight], but I love it. Beautiful, isn't it? It's stunning.'

Well, it's good to see you wearing your rings again anyway. (Or not, as some will say.)

'I think so,' she nods. A week from today she'll finally feel relaxed enough to tell Jonathan Ross that when she first put her rings back on she felt like wearing them 'in Ashley's head'. Having met Cheryl twice before, I'd say she doesn't look particularly 'fine' today, more exhausted. 'I am tired,' she notes, 'but we all are - it's been 6 o'clock starts!' Then again, where you see strain, even the ghost of trauma, she's been negotiating the most punishing workload of her increasingly successful pop life, completing the Tangled Up arena tour, the new album and promotional duties in between the weekly filming schedule for her triumphant debut as a judge on The X Factor. A move instigated by Simon Cowell (they first met on Comic Relief Does The Apprentice last February after Cheryl rang Cowell asking for money 'on air, so if he didn't ring us back he'd be caught out'). They've now become friends.

'You know when you just click with somebody?' she beams. 'Simon's perceived to be quite arrogant and self-assured, but when you meet him he's actually the other way; he's a really good person. He's a good guy, genuinely: he's got a big heart, he's got time for everybody - a naturally charismatic people person. And the fact that he respects my opinion is a big compliment to me. In the future I'd love to work in management, A&R, the real nitty-gritty.'

I like to think there's a flirtation between you.

'Really!? Noooo,' she demurs. 'I've read a few hilarious things recently, that we should get together. And I wouldn't like to insult him but [whispers]... he is a bit too old. But he is very charismatic!'

He probably fancies you for real. And the world says: 'In your dreams, mate!'

'D'you think so? I don't think he fancies me at all! Naaah. He calls me The Kid. "Come on, Kid." He took me under his wing more than anything.'

Inevitably, the tabloids have decided Dannii Minogue is vapourising with jealousy over Cheryl's incandescent youth.

'We're not friends like the girls are friends,' says Cheryl. 'We work together. But there's definitely no animosity. It's ridiculous to me.

I have friends Dannii's age, and I think women in their thirties are at their most sexy and confident. We're just different characters. She's a man's woman, more of a sex symbol.'

Cheryl's great on The X Factor - calm, frank, straightforward, preposterously beautiful, naturally empathic and usually in tears, ever attempting to hide her emotions under her ever-elevating Miss World hair.

'It looks like I'm always crying,' she protests, 'but actually out of the thousands of auditions, I've only been moved about four times! I've just always been quite a sensitive person. When you've got a grown man stood in front of you on the brink of tears, I don't know how you can't be moved.'

Our ongoing climate of brutal bitching and permanent celebrity cynicism also decrees that there must be palpable jealousy from the rest of Girls Aloud at Cheryl's overnight position as the most famous (and possibly most loved) pop star in Britain. Girls Aloud are, however, more interwoven, more ferociously supportive and protective of each other than a hundred indie bands who've come and gone over a similar six-year time span. It was they who practically forced Cheryl on to the show.

'I was like: "Are you serious, you get your arse down there!"' declares Nicola. '"And sit on that panel with pride."' 'The way I looked at it was that her fame was already on a ridiculous level,' decides Kimberley. 'They literally follow her to the shop. So why not let it be for something amazing? That you're gonna really enjoy? Let 'em write about you for good things. 'Cos she's gonna be written about regardless.'

Cheryl is suddenly in tears. We've been talking about how she dealt with the gale of public opinion this year, the relentless judgments on her marriage even as it was imploding, perhaps the first time she'd ever taken any real flak.

'Actually, I've kind of always had the flak,' she's saying, hair still bouncing in rollers. 'From the beginning. From the whole nightclub incident [she was sentenced to community service after a brawl in a nightclub toilet in 2003], people kind of immediately had a perception of me, and a false one. Of being this gobby kind of bitch... that slags people off. Who's got a perfect life? So for people to see the other side of me, which I feel they have on The X Factor... I've had some amazing things written about us recently. Julie Burchill wrote the most amazing piece on me where I was crying...'

She stops and a redness appears around her nose.

You look like you are about to burst into tears right now...

'No. No, I'm not...' And here, Cheryl begins to cry in exactly the same way she does on The X Factor, where she simply can't keep it in.

This August, as The X Factor began, Julie Burchill wrote a small opinion piece in the Sun - 'Chav Cheryl Outclasses Snobby Lily' - a critique of the feud between Cheryl and Lily Allen which pronounced Lily 'a self-loathing, street-yearning public schoolgirl and cowardly snob' while Cheryl was deemed 'radiantly beautiful, humbly born and self-made'.

'It's overwhelming to hear nice things!' she blurts, half-laughing, embarrassed now, big splashy tears dropping on to her cheeks. 'I'm fine - I just haven't read nice things like that, ever. It's like: "Wow, somebody gets us, eventually, you actually really like me." And just for being me. And not for performing. Or for having a good song with the girls. It's pretty big. 'Cos I used to be really hurt by bad stuff. I used to be so upset by the bad stuff that now when I read the good stuff I can't take that on board either. This is all weird. This is just... it's turned itself upside down.'

You're wearing your emotions pretty close to the surface, still. No wonder, maybe, after all these months of turmoil. No wonder you blub on The X Factor

'D'you know what, I think that's got nothing to do with it really,' she decides, dabbing her cheeks dry. 'It's just in me nature. Me whole family are sensitive. I cry at Coronation Street! I haven't had the easiest of lives anyway, y'know? Life's not easy. Life's not a bowl of cherries. Nobody's life is. And nobody's life ever will be. And I would hate to be one of those people that sail through life like that. Untested. Untouched. You're not living then; you're existing. You've got to experience the good and the bad in life - it's part of your character and makes you how you are. Whether you like it or not. It's life, how it is.'

Girls Aloud
Female pop group Girls Aloud when it all began, December 2002. Photograph: Polydor Records

Next week Girls Aloud release their ghost-written official autobiography, Dreams That Glitter. To the tabloids' dismay there'll be little detail on the fallout from Cheryl's marital trauma, though all their relationship stories so far do appear (from the best-known feuds, including the one with Charlotte Church, to the little-known story of Sarah's ongoing estrangement from her father). 'There's nothing seedy,' notes Sarah. 'It's not like Jodie Marsh.' 2008 has been an emotional year, though - Cheryl's year - but that's all over now. 'It was only really made that traumatic by the press,' decides Sarah. 'I'm sure they would rather have dealt with that privately. I don't ask. [Laughs ruefully] We've all been through quite a bit over the years. But whatever doesn't kill us makes us stranger. Oh, if I took everything seriously I would be in rehab!'

'Like anyone,' adds Kimberley, 'if you're going through a hard time, you focus on your career, the stable things in your life - and she's got us. Cheryl's strong, but she's also a softie and she doesn't realise how much people genuinely do love her.'

'She's my friend,' blinks Nadine. 'I love her. So when it's your friend, well, if we can be there in any way whatsoever or if you wanna be left alone to just shout and scream "Get lost!", we'll take it. And we all know people who've gone through things 10 million times worse than that.'

'She's come out the other end,' smiles Nicola. 'Look at her.'

She still seems quite traumatised to me.

'Is that what you think?' she says, genuinely astonished. 'Not at all. I honestly think she's more gorgeous than ever.'

Why would it be upsetting for Cheryl when people are positive about her?

'I suppose when it's you yourself, you don't see what other people see,' decides Nicola, the one Cheryl used to live with back in the beginning. 'She's strong, but she's not made of iron. Who the hell is? Maybe she's coming into a new phase now. We're all still growing. This isn't a fairy tale people are writing about. This is five young people's lives, and that's what you're getting. The reality of it.'

'The Promise' is out on 27 October on Fascination Records. Dreams That Glitter is published on 9 October.