Cheryl went to therapy for a year to help be better mum to Bear

Cheryl has revealed she underwent a year of therapy after secret battle with anxiety.

The Love Made Me Do It singer - who has a two-year-old son Bear with ex Liam Payne - explained she finally confronted her problems because she wanted to focus on being a mother.

Cheryl, 36, told BBC Radio 1: “I think I actually walked through the fire to be honest. I struggled for so long in silence, I wouldn't even open up to friends and family. I was very closed.

“I actually had therapy for a year. I struggled for so many years with anxiety and in my own head, thinking things… I didn't want that to be happening when I was trying to focus on raising a child.

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“It felt like my responsibilities shifted and my priorities changed and I needed to be settled in my own head to be able to give him the best that I could possibly give him.”

The Fight For This Love star admitted she had put a brave face on her struggle with anxiety for many years, before realising that might not be the best way to deal with it.

She said: “One of the problems I think with social media is that people put on this face and this facade of how they are.

“I think what happens then is everyone is looking around like, 'why does everyone seem so good and having a good time in a happy place and I feel rubbish?' And that's not helpful.

“So if people would just be a bit more open and honest with how they're feeling, I think we could all help each other.”

And Cheryl admitted she used be upset by the abuse she received from trolls on social media, but she has now learned to ignore it.

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She said: “At one point during my teens and my 20s it was horrible. You can't believe people think those things about you, you can't believe people feel those things about you, you can't believe people believe the things they read about you.

“If someone has the time and the mental capacity to want to go on an article and write a sentence about somebody, you've got to be quite an angry sad person.

“They're not okay. It's more a reflection than it is a truth - it's how they feel about themselves or how they perceive things to be.

“These people don't know you. They have no idea about you as a person or what's really going on. They can say they don't like your shoes or they don't like your hair - who cares?”