Nicole Scherzinger and Cheryl Tweedy’s long-running feud took a very unexpected turn over the weekend, after Nicole was snapped partying with Cheryl’s ex-husband, Jean-Bernard Fernandez-Versini.
In a friendship that no-one saw coming, the pair spent the evening together with other pals on Saturday (29 July) at London restaurant MNKY HSE.
Jean-Bernard later posted pictures of the night on his Instagram account, along with the caption: ”@superheromovement making move on #venicefilmfestival ... a month to go.”
Cheryl famously split from Jean-Bernard in 2015, after just a year of marriage, before getting together with One Direction’s Liam Payne, who she now has a son with.
Both have remained largely silent on their divorce, although Jean-Bernard has wished her well during various interviews.
However, the singer’s feud with Nicole has been much more public.
The tension between them began in 2011, when Cheryl was sacked from the American version of ‘X Factor’ days into her tenure as a judge, only for Nicole - who’d originally been recruited to co-host the show with Steve Jones - to replace her on the panel.
Cheryl then detailed a bizarre exchange they’d had upon their first meeting in her 2012 autobiography, ‘My Story’, calling it “embarrassing” and “awkward”.
She wrote: “The first time I met Nicole was when she was performing on ‘The X Factor’ in London. ‘Oh my God, Cheryl! You’re just as pretty in real life! I heard your song on the radio!’ she had gushed. It was really embarrassing.
“Then she started singing ‘Promise This’ to me, and I swear to God the woman sang the whole song, to my face. It was just so awkward, and every time I stood next to her she started singing it again.
“I thought how that would be like me going up to Britney and singing the whole of Baby, One More Time... in her face. Can you imagine how weird that would be?”
Nicole later spoke out about Cheryl’s claims, telling Fabulous magazine: “I’d like to give her the benefit of the doubt and hope that she would only have spoken highly of me because I’ve not spoken poorly of her.
“The story is I met her once at ‘The X Factor’ and I wanted to make her feel good. I said I’d heard her song on the radio and I think I sang the words ‘promise this’. But I really don’t know any lyrics after that.
“And then that is made out to be something else and I don’t understand why. I don’t understand why anybody would do that. It’s been blown out of proportion and it’s silly.”
However, Nicole went viral last year when she failed to acknowledge Cheryl when asked about her in an interview with HuffPost UK.
