Cheryl Cole: 'will.i.am wanted my solo career, not me'
The 'Call My Name' singer, whose debut LP 3 Words was released in 2009, admitted that she was reluctant to take a break from Girls Aloud or halt plans to start a family with ex-husband Ashley Cole
BBC/Wall to Wall/Guy Levy
Cole revealed in an interview with Pop Justice: "It was actually him that convinced me to do a solo record. I never would have done a solo record without him.
"At the time, I would have had a family. At the time I was still married! But it was actually Will saying to us, 'You know you're going to do a solo record, right?', and I was saying, 'I don't want to, not yet'.
"And he was like, 'I think you should. You need to'. He said, 'I'm excited, I want to be involved with it'. So he was involved from day one. I recorded my first ever solo song ['Heartbreaker'] with Will."
The former X Factor judge implied that executives at Universal Music were reluctant to sign her, adding: "I think the label were a bit dubious at the time when Will suggested it.
"I think they were like, 'Statistically it doesn't work'. I was married, I was sorted! It was Will who said, 'Com! e in and write'. And the first thing I wrote was 'Heaven'."
Cole's third record, A Million Lights, is out on June 18.
Watch will.i.am and Cheryl Cole's 'Heartbreaker' below: