Nicole Scherzinger: I frequently undergo therapy to get rid of demons from my head

England: On paper, she leads the perfect, jet-setting life. Beautiful, talented, globally famous and dating one of Britain’s most eligible bachelors, Nicole Scherzinger seems to have it all.

But the singer and former X Factor judge admits she goes to sessions with a life coach and a pastor to keep her life on track. She even Skypes them both when she’s away.

“I’ve had psychiatrists, life coaches, my pastor – a lot of different therapy in the past,” she reveals.

“It feels weird and invasive at first but then you just frickin’ talk about yourself so much, they’re probably going to be rolling their eyes.

“It’s good to get it out, get your thoughts and your boxes in line and become aware, aware of our patterns, our bad habits.

“Once you’re aware, then you can grow and move forward and not make the same stupid mistakes as before.

“If you don’t get it out, then those demons will just sit inside you and infest. It seals off your life.

“You want to be a better person, you want to grow. You want to have a better life, to have purpose and not be afraid to go after your dreams and to be the best... I’m a work in progress.”

Since finishing her successful stint on the X Factor last year, Nicole, 36, has been busy recording new music. And, for the past few weeks, equally busy promoting it.

Instead of crumbling under the pressure, or wanting to hibernate through sheer exhaustion, Nicole maintains her counselling with Skype and phone calls.

She adds: “I should speak to her more but it’s usually when it’s a dire emergency, like ‘Oh my gosh, I’ve got so much on my mind. I need some guidance’.

“It’s good to get some perspective, get some guidance, and have the weight taken off your shoulders. You feel so much better... and just having somebody to talk to who has no agenda.”

As a devout Catholic – her grandfather is a priest – she regularly attends church and goes to Confession which she uses as another form of self-help.

“For me it has helped,” she says. “But it is a case of each to their own. With Confession, because of my spiritual relationship with God, it just helps.

“For some people it’s meditation, for others prayer, but because I came with my Catholic roots, I feel like it lifts something off of me. It’s always good to ask for forgiveness and forgive.”

So far, so LA. But Nicole is not your average, vacuous US superstar. Trust me, I’ve interviewed scores of those. For a start, she is that rare breed of American who not only ‘gets’ sarcasm, but dishes it back in spades.

On her beauty regime: “I’ve only ever had one facial in my life... I was like, ‘Really? I could be massaging my own face right now.’”

On “vampire facials” after I tell her, sagely, that Kim Kardashian is a fan: “Ah, is that it? Is that what you live by? Kim Kardashian does it so therefore it must be great.”

So that quickly shut me up.

She is also funny. Like, actually funny.

Speaking about the gruelling nature of a promotional trail, in which she is currently busy plugging upbeat new single Your Love, she says: “It’s pretty exhausting going to all those little towns, sitting in all these cars going to Stoke, Doncaster, Liverpool... listen to me, dropping those names... Stoke!”

Stoke, let’s face it, is not a place Nicole usually has much cause to frequent. She divides her time between her Hollywood Hills mansion and Europe.

Her boyfriend of six years, Lewis Hamilton, 29, is based in the millionaires’ playground of Monaco.

Together with the Formula 1 ace, Nicole is looking for a home in London as a permanent base over here. She wouldn’t rule out dual citizenship as she already feels like an “honorary Brit”.

Once touted as the next Posh ’n’ Becks, in fact Lewis and Nicole are guarded about their personal life. Though they show up on the odd red carpet together they are loath to discuss the relationship.

Every time I mention his name, I get a polite but firm one-line reply. Perhaps feeling sorry for me, she eventually relents and throws this old dog a bone.

When I ask how she and Lewis celebrated his British Grand Prix victory on Sunday, she raises a perfectly arched eyebrow, and grins in the direction of her attendant publicist. “Shall I tell her?” she asks him.

At this point, I am grinning like a loon and nodding like the Churchill dog, hoping for tales of champagne swigging, tequila toting and drunken tattoos.

Instead we get Transformers.

“We celebrated with him and his family... but do you really want to know what we did? I’m not sure if I should say it... we watched Transformers, the one that just came out.

“I said ‘We’ll do whatever you want’, and he said, ‘I wanna watch Transformers’. I usually like those kind of things and it was OK, just not as good as the other ones.”

As we chat in her top-floor suite at the Langham Hotel in London it’s clear Nicole is very happy with Lewis and that they are planning a long-term future.

“I would love to live here,” she says. “Lewis and I have been talking about getting a place together here and have been looking at places to buy.

“As for [dual] citizenship, yeah, quite possibly, you never know. I mean the taxes are pretty much the same over here as they are in America.”

Ever the thick-skinned journalist, when I try my luck with another Lewis question I get a polite but stock reply:

“I support him in what he does, he supports me in what I do.”          

Joking that feels like she’s “80 years old”, I have to say she definitely does not look it. I’ve seen more fat on a whippet and she has the annoyingly flawless, glowing skin of the truly rich and famous.

But she had every reason to get in shape – in the video to Your Love with wears little more than a bikini or denim hotpants.

“I started preparing three to four weeks in advance,” she says. “I would workout at least two hours a day –two intense classes a day, six days a week.

“I was getting so bored with the same old stuff in the gym so I did SoulFit training. It’s a lighter, cardiovascular version of CrossFit.

“I’ve also been really getting into yoga, Bikram, hiking and sculpting, spin classes. That, and lots of lunges, helped me get in shape for the video.”

Although Nicole recently admitted to an eight-year battle with bulimia, today she is lean, healthy and with an admirably normal approach to eating. Her only vices are an evening glass of wine, and the occasional Percy Pig sweet.

Talking of pigs, she tells me: “I feel like a pig in its sausage casing in these tight pants and all this make-up.”

This kind of self-deprecation is rare at her level of celebrity. She is also one of the few remaining women in western civilisation who never watches TV.

“I won’t be watching the X Factor,” she says. “That’s not a dig against the X Factor – I just don’t watch television.

“I don’t even know how to turn it on and I don’t have cable even. I think I am the only person without. It’s not good.

“I should be watching CNN and stuff so I know what’s going on but everything else, for me, is hogwash. I’ll also be too busy with my music and touring.”

And it is there, on stage, where Nicole – despite her team of therapists – feels happiest. If she won’t pour her heart out in interviews, then she does in her music.

She explains: “The only place I feel comfortable to be myself is when I am up on stage.

“It’s the only place I can feel normal. When you are honest and share what you’re going through, that’s when people can connect.

“People write to say my music helped them deal with certain situations and that’s what inspires me and encourages me to continue.”