Cheryl Cole's decisions are hers to make, but this reconciliation marks a dismaying volte-face
After two weeks of fervent speculation, it appears that Cheryl Cole may have forgiven ex-husband Ashley for his many alleged infidelities. Yesterday's tabloids, suggesting that Ashley may already be living back in the marital home, reported that Cheryl's 28th birthday party at London's Sanderson hotel had culminated in the pop star giving her disgraced ex an "intimate lap dance". Tabloid "sources" claim the couple have been reunited and that Cheryl "has never been happier". To even the most die-hard romantic, it seems highly unlikely that this will remain the case.
It's been an extraordinary few years for celebrity infidelity scandals, centred most notably around footballers and their seemingly endless capacity for extramarital affairs. What is almost as dismaying is the footballers' wives' willingness to forgive. Ryan Giggs remains at home, Abbey Clancy married her cheating fiance, Peter Crouch, in an OK! magazine extravaganza this month, while Coleen Rooney handled her husband's humiliating string of low-rent affairs by posing on the French Riviera in 67 designer bikinis, a sun-blistered Wayne at her side.
But Cheryl seemed different. Despite initially giving Ashley the benefit of the doubt, after further allegations she finally admitted that she had no choice but to move on with her life. Here, at last, was a wronged woman in the public eye reacting in the way that most sensible civilians would. But while the Wags Cheryl has always been so keen to disassociate herself from have presumably chosen their It-bag portfolio and black Amex cards over any semblance of pride or self-respect, Cheryl is more than able to afford her own ("Footballers' wives are just as bad as benefit scroungers ? it's just a higher class of scrounger," she said in 2006, soon after marrying). Her career, though experiencing a temporary blip, rivals Ashley's, and her popularity far exceeds his. Her reasons for metaphorically punching herself repeatedly in the face like this can only be emotional.
Cheryl's decisions are hers to make, but one can't help but feel uncomfortable about the unarguable influence she has over young women who might one day find themselves in the position of being married to a man who can't keep his boxers on, whatever the stakes. Even Cheryl herself said last year: "I have met a lot of young girls, and they said they'd watched my actions and it had inspired them. It had helped them through a situation, and that's the best feeling ever."
So what now? Should her legions of fans take from Cheryl's recent actions that love, however blind, abusive and downright deluded, conquers all? There is no accounting for love, it's true. And there's nothing more embarrassing than forgiving someone after your friends and family have spent two years mopping up the mess and driving pins into a wax effigy. But now, by taking back a man whom she herself has conceded is a serial philanderer she's telling the world that it's all she deserves.
Of course, life is messy. Everybody can make a bad choice and there should be no shame in forgiving one. But five alleged affairs isn't a bum steer, it's an apocalypse. It's often said that people should never make major life decisions during major life changes, and this seems painfully apposite here. Would Cheryl be making the same choice about Ashley if the media fanfare surrounding her arrival in the US had borne any fruit? Or was the failure of her US debut down to residual depression over Cole? Either way, the reconciliation seems desperate and pitiful at best: the act of a woman at her lowest emotional ebb.
Cheryl, if she is returning to Ashley, must be doing so with mixed emotions. This is not a case of a Burton and Taylor style on-off-on-again passion, but one of a broken woman kidding herself or, worse still, accepting her inevitable fate. A cursory glance at Twitter suggests that even Cheryl's massive fanbase has its collective head in its hands, despairing at such a reckless choice. No one thinks this will end well.
Fortunately, the public's capacity for forgiveness is exceeded only by Cheryl's and we will no doubt be back on side by the time the Coles appear in their first glitzy photoshoot as a reunited couple. But Cheryl will have lost the gleam of steel that set her apart from the long suffering dignity-phobes of the Premier League's wives' enclosure. No woman should lie down and take such unutterable humiliation "Because you're worth it", as Cheryl is paid so handsomely for saying. One would only wish she'd apply the same mantra to herself.
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