[Red Moon]

Cheryl Cole is the picture of misery as X Factor loser Laura reveals: 'The pressure was too much'

The pressure of balancing X Factor and Girls Aloud duties appeared to be getting to Cheryl Cole last night.

The 25-year-old singer looked miserable as she chatted on her mobile phone outside a London studio.

Make-up free and with her hair extensions unstyled, Cheryl was far from her usual chirpy self as she joined her Girls Aloud bandmates for rehearsals.

Perhaps she was consoling her recently departed protegée Laura White, who left The X Factor on Saturday after coming in the bottom two.

Cheryl is furious with her fellow judges Simon Cowell, Dannii Minogue and Louis Walsh after they voted Laura off after her sing-off with Ruth Lorenzo.

The pop star is also still feeling under the weather after complaining on Saturday that she was coming down with the flu.

After having several disagreements with her fellow judges during Saturday's live show, Simon had a dig by saying: 'You really do have the flu don't you?'

Meanwhile, Laura admitted the pressure of being one of the favourites to win had got to her, and dented her confidence during her performance.

She told The Sun: 'The pressure builds up and it can start to affect you. I didn’t completely lose confidence - but I worked so, so hard for so many years and I really believed this would be my big break.'

Laura admitted the comments about her appearance was particularly hard to take.

Simon especially had a problem with her styling and complained about it every week.

She explained: 'The comments did bother me a bit, but Cheryl used to say, "Just stay with it - they find it difficult to say anything bad about your singing, they have to say something."'

Source and Pictures: Daily Mail

[TheMac]

Well she has been ill so I think it's fair enough. She looks stunning anway though

[Lauren]

She still looks gorgeous.