Kimberley Walsh defends Cheryl's 'X Factor' performance: 'It was amazing'

Cheryl’s live X Factor performance was widely slated by viewers last week and her first single in four years, ‘Love Made Me Do It,’ peaked at just number 19 on the charts.

And now her former Girls Aloud bandmate, Kimberley Walsh, has come to her defence.

37-year-old Walsh praised Cheryl’s performance as ‘amazing’ and said she ‘didn’t get’ the negative backlash.

Speaking to Heart radio, Walsh said: “I thought it was amazing. I loved seeing her back on there doing what she does.”

She added that she’s best friends with Cheryl, and feels like ‘a proud mum’ watching her return to the stage.

“I like seeing my best friend up there doing her thing, and I just felt proud to be honest… she’s out there doing her thing again. I felt like a proud mum.”

Cheryl has even defended her own performance and hit back at the critics in a long twitter post. Within which she blamed ‘the trolls’ online for the negative feedback and wrote: “I did watch my performance back and I LOVED IT.”

Walsh also addressed Nadine Coyle’s rather awkward confession in October when she claimed there was never a friendship between the girl group members.

“There was no falling out, there was just no friendship to begin with,” Coyle revealed on an episode of Celebrity Juice.

Walsh responded in the same Heart radio interview by saying that there definitely was a friendship – despite Coyle’s claims.

“Maybe that’s how she felt. I know that we were all friends. I don’t want people to genuinely believe that there was no friendship. We all went out together every single week. We all had some fab times,” she said.

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