Cheryl Cole has finally filed for divorce from her husband Ashley, months after rumours of his cheating ways hit the headlines
BY THE DAILY MAIL | MAY 27, 2010
The legal papers were lodged at the High Court on Tuesday afternoon - while Cole was deep in preparations for the World Cup.
His spokesman has refused to comment, saying it is a private matter. But Cheryl's PR company Supersonic had no such qualms, posting on Twitter: 'We can confirm the divorce.'
And so, after four exhausting months of carefully crafted but increasingly idiotic PR stunts, it's over.
The marriage of Cheryl Tweedy and Ashley Cole, which was forged in the vulgar crucible of OK! magazine for a fistful of cash, has been ended on Twitter with a blunt confirmation from her PR company that she has filed for divorce.
It was always low-rent, and vulgar, and seemed never to be about anything so much as looking good - so the faddish superficiality of a 'tweet' is perhaps its perfect epitaph.
Not that Cheryl's team will leave it at that. In the latest piece of spin massage, a source tells us that she is being 'generous' in filing for divorce from Ashley now so that her philandering hubbie has a whole two weeks before the World Cup to get over it.
Indeed, we are asked to believe that the Geordie lass, 26, is initiating this divorce with a heavy heart - and is acting only in the public interest. "Cheryl has put England's World Cup dreams ahead of herself," the source sighs.
The truth, however, is that her decision to pull the plug this week looks suspiciously like she is trying to hang on to her status as the nation's sweetheart. Most women would have dumped a cheating husband months before.
The divorce papers state that Cheryl confronted her husband over claims of his infidelities and that 'he admitted it'. She is said to want a 'divorce with dignity', and is keen for it to be as quick and painless as possible.
Her decision was greeted with relief by her mother Joan and friends who had feared that, during this cooling off period, there was a danger that Cheryl might take Ashley back.
He has been sending her plaintive texts and she replied with a message of congratulations when Chelsea won the FA Cup earlier this month.
And Ashley, who will be represented in the divorce by his lawyer Graham Shear, of Berwin Leighton Paisner, is said to be stunned by the decision to file the papers. He last night told a friend: 'I feel like someone has punched me in the stomach.'
And a source close to Cole added: "Ashley feels that Cheryl has just bowed to pressure from her mum and her management company to finalise the divorce. He is devastated and feels that she has filed the papers right now to scupper his World Cup chances."
