Cheryl Cole: It hurt like hell when I visited my addict brother in prison and he refused my help

Cheryl Cole grew up on a Newcastle council estate

Cheryl Cole has revealed that her older brother Andrew went off the rails after finding out his dad wasn't the person he thought he was at the age of 14.

Andrew became 'volatile' and began sniffing glue before he got into a fight and stabbed someone who'd punched their sister Gillian in a pub.

'Everyone was in pieces. People were talking about prison, and I was lying awake again, worrying myself sick,' says Cheryl, 29.

'He got six years and was locked up in a young offenders' institution to start with as he was too young to for adult jail.'

Shortly after Andrew got out of prison, Cheryl won a place in girl band Girls Aloud on talent show Popstars: The Rivals.

She offered to help her brother sort his life out with her new-found wealth but he refused, having racked up 50 convictions and developed dangerous addictions to both drugs and alcohol.

'I went to see him in prison. "Why can't you stop?" I begged him. "You're devastating the whole family. Why can't you change your ways?"' Cheryl writes in her autobiography My Story.

'He shrugged and looked me in the face. "I'm too far gone." I left in floods of tears. I had the means to help him now if only he wanted to be helped - but he clearly didn't. That hurt like hell.'

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Anna Duff