A nation breathed a sigh of relief when the first pictures dropped of a healthy-looking Cheryl Cole visiting a coffee shop off the A3 near Guildford.

The bout with malaria now fully-behind her it seems, (she even ordered her own coffee, one paper said approvingly) the snaps meant a busy day for the photo agencies who follow our Cheryl’s every move.

So did they just get lucky? Nah, they were tipped off by Cheryl’s people. “Were we tipped off? er, Yes,” said Trevor Adams of Matrix Photos. “There was a nod from insider her camp to say she was going to go to Starbucks at 7pm last night.”

Adams told the 5Live Breakfast show: “I think the reason they did that was because there’d been photographers permanently camped outside her house for the last few weeks ever since she’s been ill and they just wanted to make sure that a clean, nice picture appeared in all the papers this morning.”

So everyone’s a winner. Cheryl returns to the public gaze looking a million dollars and the snappers get juicy, nice, clean shots to flog to the papers.

But they won’t be making a million dollars from the shots, Adams says: “There was a whole army of photographers who followed her there, which effectively devalued it.”

A pic of Ms Cole with the new boyfriend, now you’re talking big bucks.

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