Cheryl Cole was keen for kids before solo career

Cheryl Cole resisted will.i.am's advice to go solo in 2009 because she desperately wanted to start a family with then-husband Ashley Cole.

The singer was planning to have kids with the England soccer ace when the Black Eyed Peas star encouraged her to take a break from her band Girls Aloud and tackle the pop charts on her own.

Cheryl Cole tells 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."

The Fight For This Love hitmaker, who divorced Ashley Cole in 2010 after he allegedly cheated on her, admits label bosses were initially reluctant to give her a record deal.

She adds, "I think they were like, 'Statistically it doesn't work.' I was married, I was sorted! It was Will who said, 'Come in and write.'"