One minute she’s announcing on national TV that she’s slept with 50 strangers in two years, the next she’s making a fresh start by marrying a man more than twice her age.

With a Playboy tattoo on her breast and a gold belly-button ring, she still looks every inch the sexually voracious teenager who shocked the nation on the BBC3 show Sex… With Mum And Dad.

Cheryl horrified her mother Debbie, 45, as well as viewers, when she confessed on air to trawling the internet for no-strings sex.

But as she lounges on the sofa in the terrace home she shares with Debbie, the teenager insists that those reckless days are now behind her.

That, she says, was the old Cheryl.

Since meeting Wayne Farrell, a 39-year-old roofer, there is only one man in her life – and if anyone doubts her commitment, she has an engagement ring to prove it.

“I never thought I could be this happy,” she says.

“Wayne is so different from the men I used to meet on the internet.

"He’s not interested in me just for sex – it’s not even the most important part of our relationship.

"We just like to cuddle or go for romantic meals.”

Since meeting Wayne through a friend three months ago, Cheryl says her life has changed beyond recognition.

Within weeks they were engaged, and Cheryl put promiscuity behind her.

They are even trying for a baby.

And while their relationship has been a whirlwind affair, she insists: “I know it will last. I haven’t wanted to cheat on Wayne, so it must be serious.”

The unemployed teenager says they’ll wed in a year or so.

Wayne doesn’t seem to be deterred by his fiancée’s colourful sexual past, but he must have felt some relief when an STD test she took on the TV show was clear.

Cheryl insists she’s proud to have appeared on the television show that turned her into a social pariah.

“I showed that teenagers these days have a lot of sex,” she says. “People sleep around. That’s life.”

It was only afterwards, faced with a negative public backlash, that Cheryl stopped to reflect on her behaviour.

She was even abused in her hometown of Dagenham, Essex.

“People came up to me in the street calling me a ‘slapper’,” she says.

“One day I was coming home from bingo with my mum when two lads came up to me and called me a ‘dirty slag’.

I was so scared, I could feel my heart pounding.

“My mum shouted at them and they ran off.

"But I haven’t been out of the house on my own since then because I’m scared of what people might say.”

The TV programme may have caused huge problems in her life, but Cheryl says she has no regrets about appearing on it because it taught her an important lesson.

“If I hadn’t done it, I’d still be sleeping around.

"I was doing it in fields, in cars, and sometimes in my school uniform.

"I could have been raped or murdered.

"I was so lucky not to have been hurt,” she says.

She now understands that her behaviour was driven by loneliness and boredom.

“My parents had split up and I felt alone,” she says.

“When I logged on to the internet chat rooms, the comments I got from men telling me how beautiful and sexy I was gave me a buzz and made me feel so wanted and good about myself.”

So much so that, since meeting Wayne, she’s steered clear of computers, just to be on the safe side.

“I don’t want to be tempted. I’m scared of falling into my old ways, and I worry that if I was presented with an opportunity, I might not be able to resist,” she admits.

Wayne says: “By the time I met Cheryl, she’d changed.

"She’s a lovely, funny, sweet girl, and I’m glad we got together.”

Do you feel sympathy for Cheryl? Do you think her marriage will stand the test of time? Is marrying an older man just another way for Cheryl to feel like she's loved? Or is it the real thing this time?

CLICK HERE NOW TO JOIN THE DISCUSSION

Photography: Lancton; Hair, Make-up and Styling: Kellie Mitchell