After Cheryl Cole spent an evening together with her ex-husband Ashley at their old home, the soccer star has been bragging to pals he will win back the Girls Aloud beauty. Friends of the pop star are fuming that had Cheryl not been dumped as a judge on the U.S. ‘X Factor’ by Simon Cowell, she wouldn’t be vulnerable to being won over by the man who broke her heart. “None of this would have happened if she hadn’t lost the ‘X Factor’ gig,” a friend told The Sun. “She has gone from being incredibly busy to having time on her hands. She has been thinking a lot and was feeling extremely vulnerable when she went to Ashley’s.”

Cheryl Cole is set to return to the American version of ‘The X Factor’, according to News of the World. The Girls Aloud singer is sorting out her work visa to rejoin the judges panel in New Jersey on Wednesday. “This is the biggest surprise of the lot – Cheryl is back,” an insider said. “Who could possibly have predicted this – it appeared that Simon had dumped Cheryl for good? But behind the scenes Simon has been wooing Cheryl.”

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A source close to Simon Cowell tells The Sun that ‘The X Factor’ judge has been given the silent treatment from Cheryl Cole after he bowed to pressure to fire the Girls Aloud star in favor of Nicole Scherzinger. Simon was reminded about the personnel move when taping the ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ semi-finals, getting booed by the audience while co-hist Dec Donnelly joked, “Can you understand my accent?”

“Simon feels guilty as hell about what has happened to Cheryl. He has admitted it was a cock-up but she won’t hear him out,” the insider said. “They used to be so close. She’d text him round the clock for advice. Now she can’t bring herself to speak to him. He feels like he’s lost a lover.”

Cheryl Cole has been axed from ‘The X Factor’ UK edition after refusing to speak to Simon Cowell or the ITV show’s bosses, passing a deadline set before they began taping on Wednesday. “They set her a ridiculous deadline,” a friend of the Girls Aloud star told News of the World. “They have basically done the same to Cheryl as they did to Dannii Minogue – given her an offer she couldn’t accept. They did this because they knew Cheryl wasn’t going to come back and they wanted it to appear that the decision was theirs. It wasn’t – it was Cheryl’s decision to go.”

The entire story at newsoftheworld.co.uk has since been removed.