We don’t think anyone, not even Cheryl, will ever understand why she wore what she wore to the first day of the American X Factor auditions. The purple pants, the orange top, the hair? She just did not look good.

And Simon Cowell agreed.

In a recent interview he’s told how the stress of bringing the show to America meant he wasn’t himself, and when he saw Cheryl, he was shocked:

“I asked her manager, "What’s she wearing, what’s happened to her hair?" He was defensive about it. I haven’t a clue why she turned up like that.”

Neither do we Simon, neither do we. But we never for a second thought she looked like she’d gained weight!

“She’d put on a bit of weight, but not loads.”

Eh, seriously?! She had a bit of extra weight in her hair, perhaps, but that was it from what we can see. However, Simon says that wasn’t the issue (how noble):

“The only way I can describe it is that it wasn’t Cheryl sitting in that seat. She’d lost her confidence.”

Cheryl has opened up since saying she “wasn’t well in the head” at the time, so perhaps getting her p45 was the best thing at the time. It didn't stop her from sending Simon an abusive text ending with “I hate you” though. Simon says:

“It was like when you get a really horrible letter from an ex-girlfriend. The general tone was something along the lines of ‘F*** you, you’ve hurt me, you’ve let me down, I can never forgive you.’

“I shrank. In a weird way I was glad to hear it. It was a week or two after the sacking, and I was glad to hear something. I replied, apologising. I accepted I had made a mistake.”

Thankfully, the two have made up since – which is just as well seen as Cheryl is a judge on this year’s X Factor. Let’s just hope she left those purple trousers in America!