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The Portal Nicole is a fan site made from fans to fans, we have no contact with Nicole Scherzinger, or with her family and agents. The articles and translations published here are made by the team, and are the property of the site and any reproduction, even partial, must be communicated to the site before its publication. The images and videos published on the website are the property of their creators, we publish them in order to keep fans updated. We do not intend to infringe any rights. Before taking any action, please contact us E-MAIL.
Scans & Interview: Cosmopolitan Magazine – August/2014
Jul 03 2014

“I was so ashamed… but now I lovemyself ‘

From roller-coaster romance to beating the eating disorder that almost stole her twenties, Nicole Scherzinger gets real like never before, and we love her even more for it.

The last time I saw Nicole Scherzinger was last December – she was blasting out a rendition of This Little Light Of Mine in memory of Nelson Mandela at the Cosmopolitan Ultimate Women Awards.

Classic Scherzy? Totally.

But what no one could have known was that mere moments before, she’d sat beside me in tears as the news of Mandela’s death broke. Real Scherzy? Yes! Because while 36-year-old Nicole is, by her own admission,‘balls to the wall’ on camera, deep down she’s just like the rest of us – sensitive, caring and a bit shy.“I get past my shyness by making everything about others and not thinking about myself. That’s what I did on The X Factor – I can be goofy and playful when it’s about the acts. They are like my babies.
But when I’m offstage I’m not as big and animated,” she admits. Right now,we’re sat on a big furry bed overlooking the ocean in a Malibu beach house for her Cosmo cover shoot.

Nicole is quick to admit she’s had her ups and downs over the years – her start/stop relationship with Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton is a high-speed race in itself if the tabloids are to be believed.
And with no plans to return to The X Factor there will be no hiding behind her ‘babies’when she releases her first album in three years this summer – and that’s OK because she’s ready to ‘peel back the layers of the onion…’ “People know they could have a pint with me, they know I work hard…but for me all my smiles and confidence are a triumph because it came from a broken place,” she says. Fighting back tears, Nicole opens up to Cosmo about the eating disorder that she battled for eight years and how – starting NOW – she’s ready to show the world the real her…

Welcome back to Cosmo, Nicole!We will miss you on X Factor this year – what did the show do for you?

“Before I started, the press were saying, ‘We want Mel B. Nicole is boring!’ I was like,‘Wow, thanks. I’ve moved my whole life over here for this.’ But the more people doubt me, the more it adds to the fire. It was balls to the wall! The more I let go, the more the British public embraced me. They gave me the confidence to just be me.”

Are you living proof that shy girls can get ahead?

“I hope so. But shy girls are a secret weapon. You don’t see them coming but they’re focused. Sure, sometimes I’m a puddle of emotions but that’s OK because I’m brewing something. Something’s coming, you just don’t know when. But it’s coming…”

What have you been working up to?

“I’ve grown so much in the past few years, in love and musically, so this is a very personal album. I’m very raw and real with it, there’s a lot of life and heart and soul in it. I worked with The Dream and Tricky – it’s the first time I’ve worked with just one team for the whole album. This album is the woman that I am, the woman that I’m not and the woman I want to be. I think every woman can relate to that.”

This year Cosmo’s partnered with Beat to raise awareness of eating disorders. It’s so brave that you spoke about your bulimia for the first time on a TV documentary…

“It was hard for me to speak about. It still is hard, and thinking about it I try not to well up… It is such a horrible, paralysing disease and it was such a dark time for me. That’s why I can empathise so much with people who have demons and voices in their heads, who aren’t nice to themselves. It robs you of living your life. But you can recover and you can get rid of it forever. I did it and that’s why it’s so important for me to share my story. I felt so alone… but I made myself so alone. You hide it from the world, you isolate yourself. But you can beat it – do not give up, because you’re so special and you’re meant for such great things.”

Who did you turn to?

“I didn’t think anyone knew in my group or in my family because I hid it that well – I was so ashamed. I knew it wasn’t normal or healthy because I was hurting myself through this cycle of disordered eating. It was my drug, my addiction. It’s an endless vicious cycle.”

How did you find the strength to beat it?

“I had started losing my voice, I couldn’t sing at shows, and then I remember my manager finding me passed out on the floor in Malta or in the south of France. I thought, ‘I’mgoing to lose everything I love if I don’t love myself.’One day when you feel like you’ve reached the end, you just say,‘I’mnot doing this anymore.’It’s sad to see how I wastedmy life. I had such a great life on the outside; the Dolls were on top of the world but I was miserable on the inside. I’mnever letting that happen again; you only get one life – I was 27 only once.”

What did you do to get better?

“I had a lot of people helping me. I had doctors who put me on medication because they didn’t know how they could help me psychologically. It’s a mental illness. I worked on myself a lot. Once you’re free from the chains of it, it’s liberating because you waste so much of your energy putting yourself down. Hating yourself and saying,‘I’m not enough.’ It really does consume your whole life. You get your life back when you let go.Us chicks are so hard on ourselves,we’re always comparing ourselves but you gotta put your energy somewhere that feels good. And now I just flipping love myself!”

And so you should.What else is close to your heart?

“I’ve been working with UNICEF and I went to Guyana where I was working specifically with disabled kids. I’m a global ambassador for the Special Olympics and my friend Tim Shriver there calls disability ‘diffability’: different abilities. These children get looked down on but imagine living in a vulnerable place and having a ‘diffability’ on top of that?We want to raise money so they can have parks that are modified for their needs, braille books for school and wheelchairs to get them around.”

Did it make you want to adopt?

“Whatever’s meant to be in the future – but I wanted to adopt every single one of those kids. I love kids – I’d like to have taken the whole bus home!”

Are you and Lewis like Carrie and Big in SATC – on/off because you can’t live without each other?

“Well it’s something crazy romantic. Relationships are hard and having to hold a long-distance relationship is even harder. It’s kudos to us for growing and trying – there’s so much love there. It’s just the distance, it’s not natural for anyone. But I’m good and I’m happy.”

Would you ever cut back your career plans to be with him more?

“No, absolutely not. This is my passion, I have so much more to give, and with him – whether we’re on or off – I wholeheartedly support him in everything he does. I know him like no one else does. It’s good we have that love and respect for each other.”

You like a party – what’s a girl’s night out Scherzy-style?

“Oh, I have a great story for you… I went for dinner with my girlfriends.On the way home we decided to stop for ‘one drink.’ I handed my credit card over thinking,‘I’m taking care of my girls tonight,’ and the guy said,‘We don’t need your card, Nicole, it’s Kate’s birthday.’We’d only gatecrashed Kate Hudson’s birthday party! There she was dancing around in her disco gear. If you asked me to gatecrash someone’s party I’d have said,‘No way’, but it was awesome,we were liv-ing! “Sometimes you think you know everything and get frustrated when life doesn’t go your way, but when you get older you realise you don’t and that’s OK. Life is about trusting fate and taking that jump.”

• Nicole’s single Your Love from her upcoming album is out 13 July.

Check out the scans:

[cpg_albumrand:3032,5]

Bruna X 81 23
Interviews Magazine Photos
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