Beyond the X factor cole gets her hands dirty

Everyone's got their favourite X Factor contestant, but now the public has chosen the real winner. Cheryl Cole's solo debut, Fight for This Love, has become the fastest-selling single of the year. Her solo album, 3 Words, which was released last week, is also expected to become one of the biggest of 2009.

This has been a remarkable year for Cole, demonstrating just how universal her appeal has become. She has been picked out by 40 per cent of parents in a Children's Society survey as the best role model for children (coming second to David Beckham). Meanwhile, as a mark of her popularity, KitKat sales have risen by 8.6 per cent since Cole and the other members of Girls Aloud promoted the brand, and leading fashion designer Matthew Williamson credits her with giving him his biggest hit of the year after she wore a tulip dress designed by him on the X Factor semifinals.

She also gave UK Vogue its highest-selling February issue when she graced the magazine's cover this year and got to say the line "because we're worth it" as the latest spokesperson for L'Oréal. And she's been granted that vaguest, yet highest honour: she's become a national British treasure.

Faced with such public interest, Cole is sensibly trying to keep calm and carry on. "It's too weird. I made a conscious decision about a year and a half ago to stop reading magazines and newspapers. I just can't. I keep my head down and do my own thing. I love that people love it, but I can't get my head around their opinions. I just have to hope they carry on enjoying it. I've also dealt with a lot of negative stuff in the past. I feel I've had both sides of it, really. If I'd bought into it all either way, it wouldn't be healthy for my mind."

Cole has had to fight to earn the public's approval. Girls Aloud have been a run-away success since they were formed on the ITV show Popstars: The Rivals in 2002, earning a combined fortune of £25 million and finding a respect that has eluded other reality TV acts. But Cole struggled from the start to win the public's affection.

In 2003, she was found guilty of assault after she punched a toilet attendant in a Guildford nightclub. Her family have found themselves on the wrong side of the tabloids on many occasions, especially when older brother Andrew Tweedy, who has substance abuse problems, served time in prison. He recently said that Cole wanted to pay for him to go to rehab but that he's too far gone to take up her offer. Though much has been made of her tough upbringing on a council estate in Heaton, Newcastle, she says that it made her fiercely independent.

In 2006, when she married England and Chelsea footballer Ashley Cole, they were dubbed the cut-price Posh and Becks by the media after their wedding at Wrotham Park in Hertfordshire. She started dating Ashley after a psychic told her she should give a footballer her phone number as he would be good for her. In 2008, after tabloid "kiss-and-tells" from a hairdresser and a glamour model who claimed to have had an affair with her husband, she was even criticised for standing by him. But when she replaced Sharon Osbourne as a judge on The X Factor in August last year, Cole became a huge hit with the public. Alexandra Burke, a contestant mentored by Cole, won the show and the tabloid headlines changed from "Girl's A Lout" to "People's Princess".

Much of her appeal comes from her ability to represent on screen what many of the millions who watch The X Factor are feeling. She stands up to Simon Cowell when his rudeness gets out of hand, worries for the contestants, sometimes holding their hand during auditions, and often bursts into tears. Her crying has become such a trademark that last year artist Lee Jones depicted her as Antony Gormley's Angel of the North, dabbing her eyes with a tissue.

"I do wish I didn't cry as easily. I get annoyed with myself, but I can't help it. My family's all the same, my mother and my aunties. I think, is this weird, am I not supposed to feel like this? I find comfort when I speak to my sister or friends and they say they felt exactly the same."

Next year the X Factor is rumoured to be going to America. Cowell has supposedly worked out a deal to launch it on US television. As Cowell doubled Cole's salary to tempt her back for this, her second series of the X Factor, it's likely that he'll want his star judge at his side for the show's American launch, but Cole says she hasn't had direct talks about the stateside move. "It's a big old deal. I've never thought about having a career there. But if it's offered, what do you say? No thank you? It's a really tricky one."

With 3 Words out, she's already signed up to reunite with Girls Aloud and release an album in 2010, though she says they have yet to hear her solo work.

"It would be weird for me to go, ‘By the way, girls, let's all sit down and listen to me warble on for ten songs'. We're on BlackBerry Messenger all the time. They'll text when they hear it." For now though, she's concentrating on her show and looking forward to Christmas. "It's my favourite time of the year, I love it."

Surely she'll be looking forward to finally getting some time off then, too? "I've always got to be doing something," she says. "Better to be busy than bored, that's what my dad always says." If this year is anything to go by, her dad needn't worry about Cheryl being bored any time soon.