Cheryl Cole has surprised fans by marrying her French boyfriend of just three months in a secret beach wedding.

The pop star and X Factor judge - who said she could not make even the simplest of decisions during a recent, bleak period in her life - said "I do" to French restaurateur Jean-Bernard Fernandez-Versini.

In a statement posted on her website, which crashed with the announcement, the 31-year-old singer revealed that she tied the knot last week.

"I usually do not discuss my personal life but to stop the speculation I want to share my happy news... Jean-Bernard and I married on 7/7/14," she said.

The Crazy Stupid Love singer, who was previously married to footballer Ashley Cole, added: "We are very happy and excited to move forward with our lives together."

The former Girls Aloud singer posted a snap of a giant stone on her ring finger on Instagram.

Since first being pictured together, Cheryl and her 33-year-old boyfriend were reported to have moved in together. They were spotted at glamorous events such as the Cannes Film Festival.

According to a previous report in the New York Times, the Frenchman had a playboy reputation when he lived in New York in his 20s and took a year off "just to party".

But he is since said to have settled down to focus on his restaurant business.

He recently leapt to his girlfriend's defence after watching her perform on the final of Britain's Got Talent.

When viewers claimed that she had mimed, he wrote: "Lady Cole, I love how much you bother them."

The couple are said to have married on a beach on the Caribbean island of Mustique with just four guests in attendance, including Cheryl's mother Joan Callaghan.

Cheryl married footballer Ashley Cole, amid huge publicity, in a lavish 2006 ceremony, but they divorced in 2010 following allegations that he had cheated on her.

She later had a brief romance with Derek Hough, and a longer romance with fellow dancer Tre Holloway.

The marriage comes shortly after Cheryl, who is set to return to TV screens as a judge on The X Factor, revealed in a magazine interview that she felt as though she was having a nervous breakdown last year.

She told Elle magazine that, following her very public sacking from X Factor USA, she "wasn't well in the head".

''I can talk about this because I'm OK about it now," she said. "But I went through hell and it literally drove me mad.

''It only hit me at the beginning of 2013 that I'd completely lost myself. I'd look in a mirror and think 'Who the hell is she?'.

"I didn't know what I thought or felt about anything, couldn't make decisions - I didn't even know what to eat or drink. Something was seriously wrong: it felt like a nervous breakdown.

"I had to stop, get out of my life I'd been living and find myself again. The consequences if I didn't were just too frightening."

The singer said that she was in a much happier place now, adding: "'I've learned that there is no such thing as a plan. You can't make them."