"People always seem to focus on the bad things I'd done - saying I dive, saying that I do bad tackles," he told The Sun. "I'm like the bad wolf, the big bad wolf of football. Everyone hates me! I just think 'what have I done to deserve that?'
"I don't know what it is that I've done wrong for people to hate me but, to be honest, I don't care."
Cole went on to admit he was wrong for his part in the scuffle between Arsenal and United players at Old Trafford.
"Two of the top teams in the country were fighting for the three points and pride as well, no one wanted to lose. When he (van Nistelrooy) missed his penalty, we were just happy that we hadn't lost the game in the last minute. It was a little bit mad and, looking back on it, you think 'what was I doing?'
But I was just backing up a team-mate. People were saying we don't have any team spirit - so we just proved that we did. We did have fighting spirit, maybe too much fight. But people asked if we were a team and if we were together. We just proved that we were."