Nicola Roberts made herself ill through stress of working on new album

The 25-year-old had been working so hard on her new solo album, Cinderella's Eyes, that she realised it was making her ill.

Roberts said she wanted the album to be perfect but picked up a cold while working hard on the track Beat Of My Drum with producer Dimitri Tikovoi.

She said to UK newspaper The Sun: 'We literally had about five days until the deadline of whether it was gonna be first single or not and I couldn't get the production right.

'I could hear it in my head but I couldn't do it. Me and Dimitri were in the studio and we were making ourselves ill - we might as well just have slept there.

'We were searching for this sound and we tried everything. We were putting these voices down and then f****** them up with effects, and then playing some hooks and then f****** them up.

'It just wouldn't work. It got to the point where I came down with a cold and I was like: 'I'm making myself ill.' I've never felt stress like the stress I felt making this record.'