If you spotted Nicola Roberts in the papers a couple of years ago, chances are it was because yet another foul-mouthed celeb had decided to take a pop at her. Fast forward to 2011, soon to be dubbed the ‘Year of the Ginge’, and Ms. Roberts is making headlines for all the right reasons.

Not content with being one-fifth of the most successful reality TV group of all time, she’s currently being salivated over by every fashion editor in the UK while her make-up range Dainty Doll is one of the best-received celebrity lines in recent memory. Then there’s the little matter of her debut solo album Cinderella’s Eyes, which has gotten the four-star verdict from fans and critics alike. We’re guessing Roberts is feeling pretty chuffed with herself right about now.
“Yeah, I am actually!” she giggles. “The reviews I’ve had of the record have just been amazing – like, shocking!”
Surely she can see why critics are favouring her floorfiling Diplo, Dragonette and Metronomy-produced effort over your average schmaltzy pop fare?
“Well, it’s not like I set out to say, ‘This is gonna be quirky’ or, ‘This is gonna be different’,” she assures me. “I mean, I can see very clearly that it’s different. I wanted it to be going somewhere…
“I just... sort of...” she trails a little, before becoming suddenly animated. “I don’t like rules! With anything. With fashion, with the way people look, with music. It angers me a bit and I feel like I want to rebel against it. I don’t like pigeonholes. I wanted to be creative and the melodies that I sang out are just the melodies that I sang out. That’s just the way it was.”
For all the dynamite material on Cinderella’s Eyes, it’s very obvious that Roberts is not a natural born pop star. As a singer, dancer and frontwoman, she’s what Simon Cowell might call “distinctly average”, but then, who needs Adele’s pipes and Robyn’s moves when you’ve got a wicked production team and a knack for writing great avant garde pop?
“Songwriting has always just been what I do,” she says. “I remember I even used to get told off in me English classes, because we’d be writing poetry and I’d be singing when we were supposed to be working in silence! I’d be doing my own little humming to make a tune! Brian from (songwriting duo) Xenomania always really praised me for me songwriting and that was amazing coming from somebody like that.”
While Xenomania and Girls Aloud were a match made in chart heaven, Roberts was adamant that all of the songs on Cinderella’s Eyes would carry her name.
“It had to be my record,” she stresses. “I can’t really act that well, I can’t really take a song on unless I believe in what I’m singing, and so me writing the record was always how it was going to be. You can’t try to be something else, because people just see through it.”
Like how people would see through a Whitney Houston acid house record?
“Yeah, or dubstep!” she laughs. “But that’s what was important when I was making the album. I had to feel like it was me. I’m even like that with clothes, I’m almost obsessive over it. I have to feel like it’s me and if it’s not me then I’m wound up inside and I’m not myself and I don’t like it.”
Of course, Roberts is no stranger to feeling low. After continually getting the fuzzy end of the lollipop from the press, there was a time when she viewed herself as little more than the “ugly one” from Girls Aloud. Now that all eyes are on Nicola, it’s understandable that she’s opted to play the role of clotheshorse, rather than sex symbol. In fact, the edgy video for ‘Beat Of My Drum’ serves as the perfect antidote for all those years of performing within the pretty, perky girl group blueprint.
“It wasn’t your typical music video,” she notes. “I had this ‘80s ponytail that hung forward and to the side. Me and Team Ginge nicknamed it the pony horn! That was our fashion-over-beauty moment. What Diplo had done with the song was so cool that I just wanted to highlight it as much as possible. It wasn’t a beauty record, so I didn’t want to make a beauty video either.”
Speaking of fashion, Roberts came face-to-face with the undisputed queen of off-the-wall style when she interviewed Lady Gaga for an MTV special in May. Did Mama Monster give her any advice?
“Yeah, she was really lovely,” she beams. “She was just sort of like, ‘You’re gonna be fine, you’ll be okay! ‘And she was right!”
Boasting a new look, a new sound and, judging by this interview, a brand new dose of confidence, it seems only fitting that Nicola Roberts 2.0 has a new motto to match.
“Listen to your instincts,” she muses. “You can always be swayed by other people but that very first feeling that you get, that slight pulling on your gut is always the right one. I think instinct is a powerful thing.”
Okay, so she’s not a natural born pop star, but she’s learning.

Cinderella’s Eyes is out now on Polydor.