Cheryl Cole's junkie ex-lover reveals he put star through hell
THE hollow cheeks, gaunt looks and plummeting weight meant just one thing to young Cheryl Tweedy's gossiping neighbours - the girl MUST be on HEROIN.
They were right on one thing - drugs WERE the problem. But the tragic addiction being fought by the future X Factor stunner wasn't HERS. It was lover Jason Mack's.
At just 16, gorgeous Cheryl's life took a nightmare two-year detour as she struggled to get him off the deadly cocaine, crack and heroin.
In a scorching new biography of the Girls Aloud star, titled CHERYL, Jason reveals her hidden story and confesses:
"When I first met Cheryl I was doing a lot of cocaine. Some days I'd blow £200 on the stuff. But she'd sit with me for hours to talk me out of getting drugs."
Corpse
Jason recalled vividly how Cheryl pleaded with him: "You don't need it, man! Why do you need that when you got ME?"
But even the thought of his beautiful girlfriend couldn't shift him.
And the stress of her impossible battle wreaked horrifying damage on her mind and body.
"She wasn't eating," said Jason. "And she wasn't sleeping from the worry, in case she had to identify me on a slab somewhere. She lost that much weight that people actually thought she was taking heroin with me."
Cheryl, 26, describes herself as a "walking corpse" at this time, weighing a skeletal five stone 11 pounds. She became so clinically depres- sed doctors prescribed medication. She admitted: "It was abusive . . . he was taking drugs and I wasn't very well.
"I was depressed and poorly for two years, really poorly mentally. I'd wake up in the middle of the night and he'd be gone, and every time you got a phone call you didn't know where he was going to be." But the first time the pair ever met it was Jason who was TELLING OFF Cheryl.
She was just a naughty 12-year-old at the time and playing truant with her best friend Lorna Reid. Jason was 23 and partner in a successful furniture business.
He said: "Cheryl used to come in the shop and I'd wag my finger at her and say 'You should be at school, cheeky chops!' "
Four years on, aged 16 and just out of school, Cheryl made her play for Jason - on the surface one of the more eligible local lads in gritty Heaton, Newcastle upon Tyne.
Stocky, athletic, with a twinkle in his eye and a ready smile, Jason seemed to be doing well. But it was just a veneer of affluence and respectability.
"I didn't have any money at the time," Jason admitted. "My last relationship was on the rocks, my business was on the rocks so I was already on the slippery slope when I got with Cheryl.
"I'd been living with a girl in Byker but things started to get out of hand with snorting cocaine and it fell to bits."
Then came the call from Cheryl a few weeks before Millennium Eve. "I don't even know how she got my number," said Jason.
"But she phoned us up and asked if I would come up and see her at her mam's. So I left the bar I was drinking in, went round there and it just took off from there.
Rave
"Her mam knew us. She'd seen us about and knew who I was. She knew I lived local. . . I think she just accepted it. Cheryl could have had her pick of any men, yet she chose me."
But Cheryl's hatred of drug culture was evident from the outset. She wanted them to celebrate seeing in the Millennium at a rave party, but despite a £30 taxi fare there she took an instant dislike to the bash and declared: "I want to go home. I want to see my mam for the New Year."
And the girl who was to find pop fame and fortune, marry star footballer Ashley Cole and be voted FHM's 2009 World's Sexiest Woman, did her best to keep Jason clean.
He said: "I'd go around to Cheryl's house just about every day. As soon as I finished work I'd go back there. I always had my tea there. And I'd have a bath.
"We used to sit and watch the soaps - Coronation Street and EastEnders - just like normal people. One day we were just watching Pop Idol and Cheryl slapped us round the head and says, 'I'll be on there one day!'. I said, 'I don't doubt you, Cheryl.' And she says, 'I WILL. Watch. I'll be on there one day. I WILL be famous.' Those were her very words."
Cheryl always had the natural self-confidence she now displays as an X Factor judge sitting alongside master showbiz supremo Simon Cowell.
That was apparent even when she applied for her first job working at a local café called JJs. On the application form she wrote: "I am so pretty that you are going to give me a job."
As Jason and Cheryl grew closer he even had a she-devil tattooed on his arm above the name Chez. "SHE picked it because it looked like her," he said.
But as Jason's business flopped he hit the dole and caved in to the drugs. "I went from having everything to living on a giro," he said.
Dreams
"I found it hard to live like that. Cheryl stuck by us when I didn't have a penny. . . but I started taking heroin because I wasn't getting any further forward."
As his addiction got worse Cheryl's friends were warning her off him. And she was getting depressed. She still had those dreams of celebrity but here she was, a teenage girl with a heroin addict for a boyfriend, and a job making tea in the local café. It was a living nightmare.
And with drugs available everywhere in their area of the North-East the odds were stacking up against the couple suriviving.
Jason recalls there were TWELVE crack dens within a half mile of Cheryl's home. And he could not be trusted to give them a wide berth. "Every time I left the house I wouldn't get to the end of the street before the phone would go and Cheryl would want to know what I was doing," Jason said.
"She just wanted to keep us away. She knew that I was sneaking off to these places but she couldn't catch us while I was doing it."
Despite all this Jason did work where he could and even managed to scrape together £500 for Cheryl as a Christmas treat.
But rather than blow the cash on herself she amazed Jason by lavishing it on HIM.
We were watching Pop Idol on TV and she turned to me and said 'I'll be there one day' 
"She handed me three neatly wrapped presents," he said. "The first was a Lacoste jumper worth £150. The second was a Lacoste shirt worth about the same.
"The third was a Henri Lloyd designer jumper worth, again, at least £150. And they were all for me. She'd spent all the money on ME."
But the fears and stress of coping with Jason's habit now pushed Cheryl's health into the steep decline and became a major worry for her family. It sparked a dramatic showdown between Jason and Cheryl's mum Joan, who was still unsure how deep he was into the drugs.
He said: "Me and Cheryl were having a big argument one day and her mam says to her, 'You get out! I want to speak to HIM.'
"Her mam sat us down and says, 'Jason, you've got a problem. What's the matter? Why are you like this?'
"I wanted to tell her but I couldn't. Even her mam had seen the change in us. And she says, 'I've heard the rumours. Is it true?' And I told her lies. I says, 'No, it's not' instead of 'Aye, it is.'
"They call crack the devil's dust because it steals your soul. It just takes everything away from you."
Everything climaxed in the summer of 2002, a month before Cheryl auditioned for Popstars: The Rivals, her springboard to fame.
The breaking point came when Jason went AWOL for a week in a crack den. While he was away, Cheryl noticed the designer clothes she'd bought him for Christmas were missing, sold to buy heroin.
When Jason finally arrived home Cheryl let him have it straight. "It's me or the drugs!," she said. "Take your pick 'cos I can't put up with it any more!"
But she was devastated when Jason then just walked away. "And that was that," he recalled.
Demons
To this day Cheryl has maintained her strong anti-drugs stance. Her hatred for that culture is clearly seen in her outspoken views on junkie rocker Pete Doherty.
She said: "I couldn't give a s*** about him and I don't care if I never see a picture of him again.
"He's not a poet. He writes s***. He is a waste of fresh air. Why is he such a genius? Because he went out with Kate Moss? And he gets let off from jail.
"Kids think, oh, he doesn't even get locked up.
"I don't have any sympathy for addicts. I really don't give a f*** how they feel. If they are in pain because of drugs, it's self- inflicted."
And Jason, now 37, has succeeded in pulling himself around.
He won his battle with the drug demons after a treatment programme and lives quietly in Newcastle. He was absolutely thrilled to see Cheryl's rise and rise to stardom and said:
"She's exactly the same as she was. If Cheryl has got something to say, she says it. She wasn't ever frightened of anybody."
© 2009, Sean Smith. Extracted from CHERYL by Sean Smith, to be published by Simon & Schuster on September 3 at £14.99.
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This article has 30 comments
well.. that just shows she has been through alot.
cheryl you are my ideal and you shouldnt take any notice in what poeple say about you. your a darlin. your beautiful. your stuning. your all i would ever wont. just be yourself babe. dont change for no one, your perfect how you are.
loveyou cheryl xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
By simone loves cheryl xxx. Posted September 28 2009 at 5:21 PM.
cheryl is what u call a celebrity starting from a normal upbringing.... got a lucky brake and has worked her way up 2 what she is today!!
she is beautiful!!... so what if she knows it... thats what u call confidence... dont get anyware without it, probibly one of the main reasons she's done so well!!
alteast she hasn't got her boobs out and done porn videos to get famous....shes a true celeb
and a grate insperation need more like her!! x x
By kim. Posted September 21 2009 at 7:26 PM.
People saying that Cheryl has a big ego should just shut up and stop judging her. Do you actually know anything about her? Obviously I don't know her, but i have watched countless tv programmes and interviews with her in and read the official Girls Aloud autobiography and met her and she's such a lovely person. She's really humble and grateful for where she is now, she certainly hasn't let fame get to her head. I haven't just seen her on the X factor , or read an interview about her which may not be true and written her off, like alot of you seem to have done. I'm not saying you should agree with me and like her, but you can't just judge someone on a newspaper article. We don't even know if it's all true, this Jason might be after some quick cash, i certainly don't think the job application bit is true , because Cheryl is far from big headed, but if it is then she was a confident teenager, so what! Cheryl isn't perfect, but nobody is, i love her though, she is a great role model.
By Anon.. Posted September 3 2009 at 12:43 AM.
Sorry but this story is irrevelant as Cheryl is.
It's not even news as such, we all have a past Cheryl's is just a catalogue junkies and cheaters so what big deal.
By Lorna . Posted September 1 2009 at 11:12 AM.
At least Pete Doherty has talent. She's only made it so far because she's a pretty face. Sucky singing voice.
By Eric. Posted September 1 2009 at 7:46 AM.
Hey i am married to jason macks mothers. sisters, daughter. and i can only wish cheryl all the best. she has come along way from what once was, and there will always be people that say this and that i hear it all the time. i think all of us somewhere have a demon or so, dwelling some where present or somewhere in the past. jason also has moved on and is probabley kicking him self so hard. and its one of those stories you here when your sitting in a pub. hey i used to go out with cheryl tweedy. and everyone thinks yeah what ever boyfriend.
but all in all, let the past be the past and everyone can enjoy a geordie lass. putting us on the map.because deep down nobody means any harm. cheryl i salute. you have true passion
By James. Posted September 1 2009 at 12:56 AM.
she's a fab role model. Gorgeous girl with imperfect features (i LOVE how she has never given in to the pressure to have her nose done ala Ashlee Simpson) big bloody deal she has a makeup artist, stylist and hairdresser ... find me a celeb who doesn't!
She hasnt had surgery to change anything, she makes the most of what she's got and looks stunning for it. And she seems like a really nice person too, which is very rare for someone so gorgeous.
Anti-drugs, heart of gold, funny, intelligent, hardworking, ambitious and successful ... what is there to NOT admire and look up to about her?
By jaye. Posted August 31 2009 at 12:31 PM.
When the hell are you guys gonna realise this 'chick' is another Sharon. I have been in the audience for x factor and she 'aint' no lady. She has a fowl mouth when the cameras stop rolling and is thick as s***t! Admittedly she is pretty but thats it. She has no talent whatsoever apart from being able to diet like VB! JUST ANOTHER COMMON SHARON OSBORNE!!!! RIP
By Sandy. Posted August 31 2009 at 12:22 AM.
I think Cheryl looks pretty good good - but she doesn't seem very bright - and quite honestly just doesn't seem very interesting. I also don't think she's a good role model for young girls as her whole world seems to be about money, designer goods, a flash lifestyle and little else.
A lot of my male friends agree that she's pretty - but none of them actually find her desirable - as she just seems rather high maintenance.
She does okay on XF - but it must be hard for her to comment on young girls who can actually sing...
I think she's had a very lucky break - nothing more, nothing less!
By Fiona. Posted August 30 2009 at 7:21 PM.
I just wish she would not open her mouth
By satinder. Posted August 30 2009 at 6:24 PM.
Cheryl ...you are a very good example for many girls now a days.
Be yourself and not pay attention to envious people.
By Alberto Lopez. Posted August 30 2009 at 5:44 PM.
I just love Cheryl so so much, beauty and brains is all any man could ask for in a girl.
Anti-drug campaigners could do worse than get the georgeous Cheryl involved in their campaigns.
Love you Cheryl, I really really do.
By graham laidler. Posted August 30 2009 at 4:23 PM.
She stuck it out with a druggie for as long as she could and she's sticking it out with her two-timing rat of husband. Sounds like she's nothing but a sympathy junkie to me.
By Jane. Posted August 30 2009 at 2:58 PM.
@Madeline and Teigs- WELL SAID! I totally agree
By Cathy. Posted August 30 2009 at 1:50 PM.
Cole is hardly the last word in classy herself.And as a "singer" she is bland and mediocre.The female amateurs on XF are better .She is vastly over rated.And not that good looking.There are far more beautiful women around in celebrity pool.She behaved like a chav for years and suddenly plays "the lady of the manor house" just because she got onto XF.Still dresses like a WAG and those hideous old WAG hair extensions are vile, maroon or brown.
By Madeline. Posted August 30 2009 at 11:19 AM.
Why o why do such beautiful girls like Cheryl end up with problematic men? A cheat and a druggie. These men do not deserve Cheryl. I hope one day she'll find someone more sensible who knows how to behave himself.
By Jane. Posted August 30 2009 at 11:08 AM.
If you think she is all sweetness and light think again, you can take the girl out of the gutter but not the gutter out of the girl.Jason has been clean since August 2002 and it's all down to his own hard work and nothing to do with her. How can she say such things or is it just to make more money.
By Brain Mack. Posted August 30 2009 at 10:44 AM.
At 16 going out with 27 year old drug addict, with her Mum's approval! Nice one.
By Jackie. Posted August 30 2009 at 10:03 AM.
Cheryl's a great role model, strong, honest and has backbone.. Love her xx
By Angela. Posted August 30 2009 at 9:44 AM.
I'm not a fan of her but I have to hand it to her with her reaction to drugs. My Dad got stabbed by a heroin addict with their syringe when he worked as a paramedic....crazy bitch stabbed him when he saw her distressed and did what comes naturally. that selfish cow screwed up our lives and turned my Dad into a bad tempered and sometimes violent person...
I agree with her so much....people like Pete Doherty and this guy are so selfish....why is he coming out with all this now...makes you wonder just what he's going to blow his cash on...
By H. Posted August 30 2009 at 8:34 AM.
Im sorry but i have to say i am not on the band wagon which loves cheryl cole, i am a female, 5 ft 3 slim, dark eyes dark hair and im not jealous in the slightest of ani women not because i think im stunning but because life is to short to be jealous of someone who has the money and people to MAKE her look like that, but actually saying you will give me a job coz im so pretty??? what the hell, talk about been up your own bumhole! She asked jason why take drugs when you can have me.. hmmm wonder if she asked ash the same question about the hairdresser... why have her when you had me.. obviously looks arnt all you need to keep a guy chez... a personality and a little less ego goes a long way my friend!
By teigs. Posted August 30 2009 at 8:13 AM.
still a better catch than cashley!!!
By jim liston. Posted August 30 2009 at 7:13 AM.
Jealous much.... I think so!
By Anon. Posted August 30 2009 at 2:01 AM.
jerks?? how old was she when she said that?? i said stuff like that when i was a young teenager!!
I love girls aloud and i think cheryl is great!! she's really down to earth, she is a great role model to kids unlike jordan with her baps out all the time getting drunk and falling out of clubs or kerry katona with her snorting cocaine and foul language. My little girl is 6 and i know who i'd rather have as a role model!!
By kate. Posted August 30 2009 at 1:13 AM.
What dim witt, what an utter FOOL, what a PLONKA, what a thicko, what a donkey's backside.
He had one of THE most beautifull weman in the world at his feet, she cared for him, she LOVED him yet this LOSER couldn't see that. He chose drugs instead of her and he lost her.
What a complete IDIOT, I bet he feels really bad now, knowing once she was HIS and now she will never be his.
LOSER.
By harry-5. Posted August 30 2009 at 12:28 AM.
so up herself talk bout love yeself omg
By sal. Posted August 30 2009 at 12:03 AM.
well, jerks, she is absolutely gorgeous.. i'd kill to look anything like her.
atleast she's not some fat woman going ''im skinny, give me a job.'
By sam. Posted August 29 2009 at 11:41 PM.
Shes a classy chick is our Cher! She stayed with Ca$hley Cole even tho he admited to Doinking other birds..what a Joke! She should have binned him and returned to Jason!
By Bopinder Singh. Posted August 29 2009 at 11:34 PM.
LOOKS LIKE SHE IS GENERALLY ATTRACTED TO LOW-LIVES AND WASTES OF SPACE!
YOU ONLY HAVE TO LOOK AT THE ONE SHE'S MARRIED TO!!
BUT HEY, WHATEVER HARDSHIP SHE EXPERIENCED LIVING UP NORTH, SHE IS CERTAINLY MAKING UP FOR IT NOW LIVING THE HIGH LIFE DOWN SOUTH!! NOT THAT SHE ACTUALLY DOES ANYTHING INTERESTING OR WORTH WHILE...
By Elsie. Posted August 29 2009 at 11:16 PM.
rather listen to Pete Doherty than her any day! yes, he has a problem, but he's still a good musician. "i am so pretty that you are going to give me a job" this girl has a big ego...
By jerks. Posted August 29 2009 at 11:14 PM.