Is cruel Cowell to blame for Cheryl’s weight loss?

MIXED messages from Cheryl Fernandez-Versini. After being photographed looking painfully thin at x Factor auditions this week, she hit back at her critics.

First of all Cheryl seemed to accept her appearance was extraordinary by pointing out that her father-in-law had just died and fans had ‘no idea’ what she had been through. This seemed to suggest a troubled relationship with food. She said: ‘I would never dream of calling somebody too fat and that they should maybe cut down on their food intake. what is the difference?’

The difference, Cheryl, is fat people usually try to hide their bodies from the public gaze. By contrast, the pop singer seemed proud of her new body and was determined to show off the dramatic difference in her shape — usually a sure sign of someone struggling with weight issues or some kind of body dysmorphia. Cheryl’s elegant Mugler bralet and high-waisted trousers flaunted — not flattered — her protruding ribs and horrifying sparrow-wing shoulder blades. Some onlookers said she looked like a bag of bones and it was hard to disagree.

Yet think on this. one of the reasons Cheryl was humiliatingly sacked from the American x Factor in 2011 was boss Simon Cowell thought she was ‘ out of her comfort zone’. He also said she had ‘put on some weight’, though claimed this wasn’t the issue. Heaven knows what effect that public rebuke had on her self-esteem. So here she is, back on the x Factor treadmill, looking half the size she was four years ago. That’s why I think Cheryl deserves support and understanding. whatever she is going through, her gaunt appearance is testament to the terrible commercial pressures young women like her must endure to stay viable and l o ok good

on-screen.