No.1 for Interviews - Susan Boyle
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‘I feel humbled that so many people would go out and buy my record’
The singing sensation Susan Boyle, speaks about the life-changing year she has just had and reveals why she really ended up in rehab
As the clock struck midnight on New Year’s Eve, there would have been few in the world that could claim that 2009 had been as monumental for them as it had been for Susan Boyle. Just 12 short months ago she was a ‘wee wifey’ from Blackburn, living a life that she described as “mundane” at best. Today, she is a global superstar.
It was just over a year ago – the 21st of January to be precise – that Susan took that first step that would change her life – just how much it would change has taken no one by more surprise than Susan herself. That was the day of the Britain’s Got Talent audition, held in Glasgow’s SECC, and it was the day that she blew everyone away.
There will be few among us that have not seen the footage of her audition. Apart from the BGT series attracting record ratings, the clip received over 300 million hits on YouTube – which, incidentally, is more than Barack Obama’s inauguration. She became an overnight sensation – the world over – but it wasn’t just down to her singing. As with most talent shows these days, being talented is not nearly enough. The contestant has to have a story: something that will resonate with the audience – ideally make them cry – and something that the press will pick up on and run until those column inches are full to the brim.
Susan Boyle provided all that. A 47-year-old spinster with learning difficulties who had lived in her family home all her life, she cared for her mother until her death in 2007. It had been her dying mother’s wish that she “be someone” which was the reason Susan gave for auditioning for the talent show in the first place. On top of that she revealed that she had never had a man in her life – never even been kissed in fact. All in all it was TV gold and the stuff that producers’ dreams are made of. All they needed now was for her to be able to actually sing.
Susan took care of that effortlessly. Walking onto the stage, the viewers at home could see the audience’s less than welcoming reaction to a woman who was as far away from the young, pretty, primped and preened singing sensations that we are used to today, as you could imagine. There were derisive wolf-whistles and contemptuous looks and even the judges Simon Cowell, Amanda Holden and Piers Morgan, were visibly hostile – particularly when Susan claimed she wanted to be “as successful as Elaine Paige.” But as soon as she sang that first line from ‘I Dreamed a Dream’ that all changed. The audience rose to their feet and Susan was a hit. Asking why she thought she had captured the attention of the public, her answer is breathtakingly honest. “A woman with mad hair, bushy eyebrows and the frock I was wearing had to be noticed. Come on!”
Never has the phrase ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’ been more apt – or more universally applicable. If they were honest, everyone who watched Susan’s audition would admit that they didn’t expect her to be able to sing, and this general sense of cynicism – prompted almost completely by her appearance – caused a great many people to take a long hard look at themselves. She said at the time, “I knew what they were thinking, but why should it matter as long as I can sing. It’s not a beauty contest.” Without even realising it Susan had tapped into our psyches and we wanted to become better people because of it.
It wasn’t until April that year that her audition finally aired and her life changed completely. A media storm was brewing and Susan was caught in the middle of it. “It started off with the Daily Record visiting my door,” she said. “And it ended up with TV stations from all over the world camping out on my street waiting for interviews and stories. I’d peek out from behind the curtains in the house, saying, ‘What in God’s name is going on here?’
Then the phone calls started. My number was still in the phone book at that particular time, so anybody could get it and the phone was ringing 24 hours a day. It was constant. People were ringing me who I couldn’t understand because of their accents. All sorts of nationalities – lots of Americans. It was absolutely unbelievable if I’m being honest.”
America was just one of the countries that really took her story to heart. Typically the US is a country that loves a good ‘success over adversity’ story and Susan’s was the ultimate. Major American TV networks started vying for an appearance from her. Oprah Winfrey and Larry King chatted to her via satellite link ups and she turned up on news channel after news channel. Back in Britain, the press were hounding her just as much and as the final of BGT approached it reached fever pitch.
Susan had received the highest number of votes to go through to the final and was the clear favourite to win, so it was a shock to everyone when she came second to dance troupe Diversity in the end. It was an even bigger shock when, the next day, she was admitted to The Priory, a private psychiatric clinic in London. Britain’s Got Talent’s makers released a vague statement saying, “Following Saturday night’s show, Susan is exhausted and emotionally drained” but reports were widely circulating that she had suffered a mental breakdown, brought on by the pressures of the show and the surrounding media attention.
Simon Cowell and the show’s makers found themselves in the firing line as the public demanded to know why a little woman from a small town, who was known to have learning difficulties, hadn’t received adequate support. Simon responded saying, “I didn’t pick up on any unduly troubling signs. She was nervous, yes, but no more nervous than Paul Potts had been before his live final two years previously. She understood the significance of the night.”
He continues, “Then, during the final show, at the crucial point when the dance group, Diversity, won, I looked over at her face and thought, ‘Christ, she doesn’t know how to deal with not winning.’”
Speaking about her stint in rehab Susan revealed, “I hadn’t eaten for about a week. I hadn’t slept. The feeling was one of extreme exhaustion. It’s a chapter of my life that’s over with now.”
The incident had, once again, prompted a wave of self-reflection as people began to question just how morally correct such reality shows really are. Is it right that someone should be plucked from obscurity, thrust into the spotlight and have their personalities and passions put under the microscope, only to be dropped again when they don’t win? Perhaps not, but as the viewing public knew from experience, this is inevitably what happens. But if the public knew that then surely the makers of such TV programmes did? General opinion was that they knew all too well but the ratings boost that such press attention brings was far more important to them than a contestant’s wellbeing.
Suddenly this was no longer good enough and calls for better support for reality show contestants could be heard from all four corners of the globe. It was felt that programme makers had a duty of care to those who participated and all of Susan’s fans out there wanted to make damn sure that she was taken care of.
One of those fans was Prime Minister Gordon Brown who called Simon Cowell directly to check on her condition. He said, “I hope Susan Boyle will be okay because she is a really, really nice person and I think she will do well.”
Behind the scenes, Simon Cowell took time to reassure Susan that just 
because she had missed out on the top spot, it didn’t mean her dream was over. A source close to him said, “Simon told her she had everything going for her – a record deal, an American tour. But it was entirely up to her. She had to decide what she wanted.”
She wanted it all and so work started on Susan’s debut album in July of last year. It took just two months to make with Susan selecting every song carefully. “It was important to me that I could feel everything I was singing,” she revealed.
I Dreamed a Dream was released on the 23rd of November 2009 having already become Amazon.com’s best-selling album in pre-sales. In the UK, it became the fastest selling debut album of all time selling 411,820 copies in its first week, and outselling the rest of the top five albums combined.
But it was in the US that the strength of her popularity was truly felt. Her album sold over 700,000 copies in its opening week and topped the Billboard chart for six straight weeks. Hers was only one of two albums that sold over three million copies in 2009, which is pretty impressive considering it did it in just over a month.
Speaking about the success of her album Susan said, “I feel humbled that all those people would go out and pay to buy my record.”
It is no over exaggeration to say that Susan Boyle is one of the hottest commodities in music today – and she looks it. Gone are the dowdy dresses, unkempt hair and bushy eyebrows that she sported in the beginning. Speaking about her make-over she said, “It’s absolutely nice. Nice to be pampered. I feel very feminine. I scrub up pretty well. This is more professional, more polished – don’t you think?”
But although she is looking, and sounding, better than ever her success has continued to be plagued by stories warning of her delicate mental state. In January this year reports were circulating that she was acting “erratically” in Heathrow Airport. She was seen dancing and singing with a mop in front of fellow first class passengers in the British Airways VIP lounge and it is also alleged that she shouted obscenities and tried to polish a passenger’s shoes with the mop. A BA official who sat with Susan until she boarded her flight to Chicago, where she appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show, brought the behaviour to an end.
A spokesperson for Susan said of the incident, “Susan was being playful. She was with her management and was merely excited about going to Chicago.”
But there continues to be concern that Susan may not be able to cope with the pressures that stardom brings. Just last month she discovered an intruder inside her Blackburn house. It is understood that as the singer opened her front door, a man ran out of her house. The police were called and a man was detained in connection with the incident. Despite her huge success, the singer has not moved from the council house that she has always lived in, and certainly does not have the security measures that you would expect a global superstar to have.
But it is one of the latest incidents that is likely to cause Susan the most distress. Elaine Paige, the woman Susan professes to be her “idol”, publicly attacked the star calling her a “virus” who she doesn’t have any “pride” in. Speaking at the South Bank Awards last month, the West End star said Susan had found fame and celebrity status without working hard or having any experience and likened her to “a virus who had spread across the world in a nanosecond.”
It will come as a terrible blow to Susan who sang a duet with Elaine at Christmas. At the time she had gushed, “I never thought I would see myself standing on the same stage with such an icon from West End theatre, let alone signing with her as an equal.”
But unfortunately it would seem that these incidents are the price of fame. It just remains to be seen whether Susan, who is thought to have amassed a fortune of millions of pounds, has the emotional reserves to pay the price.
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