In a decade, the singer has gone from ‘the most hated teen in Britain’ to top 10 success in the US. So why is she still having to defend her past?
![Cher Lloyd: ‘After The X Factor, I had to do damage control. I still have to’](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/3ba1916db2b9dd75e42e682dd9d680b634fedd32/1289_344_5431_3258/master/5431.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-align=bottom%2Cleft&overlay-width=100p&overlay-base64=L2ltZy9zdGF0aWMvb3ZlcmxheXMvdGctZGVmYXVsdC5wbmc&enable=upscale&s=e0465562279d4a6963d1b3ba1ebeb406)
About a year ago, Cher Lloyd was shopping in the
Disney Store on Oxford Street when she was approached by a new fan: a middle-aged man who told her that he had seen her recent appearance on Loose Women. “He went: ‘I just want to say, you’re nothing like I thought you were gonna be like – you’re not horrible at all,’” Lloyd remembers. “My heart sank.”
The experience has stayed with her as an example of the “heartbreaking” perception of her in the
UK – not that she has ever been allowed to forget it. Nearly a decade has passed since her barnstorming X Factor audition of Soulja Boy and Keri Hilson’s Turn My Swag On, still hailed by many as a touchstone in the show’s history.