Cheryl Fernandez-Versini has said she would only sign over-18s to the record label she is looking into setting up, saying younger singers struggle to cope with the music industry.

A picture of Cheryl Fernandez-Versini on the red carpet
Cheryl Fernandez-Versini (Ian West/PA Wire)

The X Factor judge voiced her concerns about putting contestants who didn’t have their GCSEs yet through to the later rounds of the ITV show, and will demand that future stars are even older than that for her own label.

She told the Daily Mirror: “Look around at the child stars – the record’s not exactly promising. It’s too much pressure. They would have to be over 18. But I would develop them while they’re in school.”

Having mentored young stars on TV, Cheryl said she’d like to do the same for anyone she signed: “I would nurture the artist before they put anything out there. I would ensure my girls do a preparation course.

“I love the aspect of X Factor where I’m nurturing talent. Watching the sparkle in someone else’s eye and remembering you having that dream, it’s such a buzz.”

(Daniel Leal-Olivas/PA)
(Daniel Leal-Olivas/PA)

However, she added that the label wasn’t likely to be up and running any time soon: “These things take a long time. I have to get the right team.”

Cheryl, who shot to fame herself after winning a place in Girls Aloud as a contestant on Pop Stars: The Rivals, said she had experienced the cut-throat world of music and how people were forced to change the way they looked.

Girls Aloud
(Ian West/PA Wire)

She said: “It’s outrageous and it’s sad. Talent doesn’t have anything to do with how you look. Aretha Franklin is not a small woman and she’s got one of the greatest voices in the world.

“But all those polls – ‘who looks better?’. Pitting women against each other. You never see two men in the same suit, do you?”

The I Don’t Care singer had her name removed from a proposed set of Superdrug scales recently as they were going to include celebrities’ weights for people to compare themselves to.

She explained: “I asked them to remove my name and got an apology. I don’t want to be that person where someone says, ‘I weigh the same as so and so, but I want to weigh the same as Cheryl’.”