Susan Boyle (2 page)

Piers Morgan was equally irritated by suggestions that all might not be well. ‘Susan, like all performers, has up and down moments,’ he told
Sky News
. ‘It’s very pressurized performing in front of thousands of people, whoever you are. Barbra Streisand still gets nervous. John Lennon apparently was very nervous before every Beatles show. It’s not a new phenomenon to Susan. I think she deals with the pressure very well now. She has very good people around her. Whenever I’ve seen her or spoken to her she’s been remarkably relaxed, thoroughly enjoying it, and for everyone who still persists in saying, “She’s cracking up, boiling over, she can’t deal with it,” well look at her. She’s made one of the best albums of the year, she’ll be the biggest-selling artist of all time, she’s taking America by storm, she’s loving every second, she looks amazing - I think the people that criticize her should shut up and enjoy the moment of Susan Boyle becoming the fastest-selling artist in history.’

She certainly rallied quickly. Such was the interest in her in the United States that plans were announced to make a television programme about her life,
I Dreamed A Dream: The Susan Boyle Story
, to be shown on both sides of the Atlantic. Meanwhile, Susan herself had tackled the issue of whether or not she would be able to cope with it all head on. ‘There was a lot of attention,’ she told Matt Lauer. ‘I asked myself, “How do you cope with all this?” I did have a period of self-doubt where I felt I wasn’t good enough. And there are times when, because I’m shy, I wished it would all go away. Sometimes you do think that, it’s only human nature.’

There were other issues to consider as well, mainly brought about because Susan’s experience was so unique. Unlike other singers who had become extremely famous, Susan hadn’t had much time to adapt to her new status, which made coping even more difficult. Hers had not been the traditional route up through clubs and smaller establishments, which is how most professional singers learn their trade - a hard slog that makes them well aware of their own worth. At times Susan herself must have felt that she hadn’t paid her dues - for all that she had led a sheltered life, she hadn’t experienced the years of endeavour and rejection that most singers have to endure. It would be surprising if she hadn’t sometimes wondered whether she was worth all the fuss.

About one thing, though, Susan was adamant: she was very happy with her lot. ‘I accept now that my life will never be the same,’ she continued. ‘And I don’t want it to end. It’s OK. It’s just comfortable in my shoulders right now. I don’t feel pressure just now. I just feel a sense of humility.’

The interview on the
Today
show was a revealing one, for Susan also tackled the other issue - the one that lay behind everything - head on. Until then, although there had been a good deal in the press about her mental ability, Susan hadn’t really commented on the subject at length herself, although she had made passing reference to her condition, which was caused when she was starved of oxygen at birth. She was clearly going to have to talk about it at some point, however, as it increasingly became the elephant in the room. She finally spoke about it to Matt Lauer, pointing out that in many ways her new-found fame was exactly what she needed to help her to cope.

‘I do have a slight disability - I had difficulty trying to express myself properly and music is a release for me,’ she explained. If that didn’t silence the doubters, nothing would, for in essence Susan was saying that what she couldn’t put into words, she could put into song. This was her way of communicating with the rest of the world.

The teariness aside, Susan’s trip to the United States had been a massive success, and one that had also allowed her to take stock. As she flew home, the sound of cheering and applause still ringing in her ears, there were decisions to be made, such as how to forge ahead? In the immediate wake of her stardom, Susan had been planning to move down to London full time, but those plans were now shelved. What she needed, as she and everyone around her realized, was complete security when she wasn’t in front of a crowd, and that was best found at home.

Consequently, a more modest plan was hatched: Susan would buy the four-bedroom council house in Blackburn, West Lothian, where she had lived all of her life, not least because she didn’t want to disrupt the existence of Pebbles, her much-loved cat. She was certainly able to afford her old home now. Estimates of her initial earnings varied wildly, with figures stretching from £100,000 to £6 million, but whatever the truth, one thing was certain: Susan’s financial situation was about to be transformed. And when she returned to Scotland she was greeted, as expected, as a returning conquering hero.

Another concern, which swiftly proved to be unfounded, was that Susan would let it go to her head. In actual fact she seemed remarkably unfazed by her change of fortune. On returning to Scotland, where she had been advised to get some rest, Susan was photographed waving cheerily, clad in a polka-dot dressing gown and pyjamas, looking totally unselfconscious about being photographed in her nightwear. It brought to mind a very different woman who had also been surprised by photographers while wearing just a long T-shirt, but who had reacted very differently: Cherie Blair, the day after her husband was elected Prime Minister in May 1997. Whereas Cherie appeared flustered and uncomfortable about being photographed in such a revealing and unflattering light, it didn’t appear to bother Susan. It seemed she was adapting to her new life quite well.

Even so, there were mixed reports from Susan’s neighbours, who suddenly found they had a superstar in their midst. One, Teresa Miller, told the
Mirror
that Susan had ‘definitely changed’, although she was aware that there was nothing malevolent about it. Susan’s situation was almost unprecedented, and she was learning to cope day-by-day. ‘I said hello to her in the street the other day and she blanked me,’ Teresa went on. ‘Then on other days she’s perfectly charming. It must be the stress getting to her. But I’ll always be here for her if she needs me.’

Then there was Susan’s new album, which she had apparently taken to playing at full blast. ‘It was so loud on Thursday I couldn’t hear Jeremy Kyle on TV!’ said Teresa. ‘It started about a week before it was released, so by the time it was on sale we already knew every track by heart. I think her favourite song is “Wild Horses” as that’s the one she plays the most. We’ve also seen two ambulances and a doctor come to her house. Susan had told me she had been feeling pains in her stomach.’

On the whole, however, Susan’s neighbours were very protective of her. She was one of their own; she had grown up in the community, and while she might have experienced difficulties with a few, isolated individuals, on the whole people just wanted to make sure she was all right. They knew about Susan’s learning difficulties first hand and had seen her transformed in front of the whole world. They understood that she was subject to the kind of pressures that more robust individuals have difficulty dealing with, and they wanted to make sure she was able to cope.

Helen Barkhouse, who had looked after Susan’s mother Bridget until she died in 2007, was another neighbour who portrayed Susan as sensitive, generous and not at all spoiled by fame. ‘Susan was here wearing a black beret and a necklace and I told her how pretty she looked,’ she told the
Mirror
. ‘She took them off and gave them to me. After her mother’s death Susan got really low. She once came up to me in the supermarket and said, “I really need a hug, can you give me a hug?” She might be a star, but whenever Susan comes home we’ll make sure she’s properly taken care of.’

It was certainly what Susan needed, because by now her album had débuted at number one in the charts, guaranteeing her even more attention. In her first audition for
Britain’s Got Talent
, Susan had said she wanted to be as big as Elaine Paige. At the time, given her then unrefined appearance and having not yet proven the power of her voice, the viewer could have been forgiven for being a little doubtful. Now it was beginning to look as if this might actually be the case. ‘It’s fantastic,’ was all a clearly overwhelmed Susan could say, but it was a lot more than that. It was an extraordinary achievement from a woman no one would ever have dreamed could become a star.

Simon Cowell, the ringmaster of this particular circus, bobbed up again. ‘I’m incredibly proud of Susan and delighted for her,’ he said. ‘This success couldn’t have happened to a more deserving person. Susan Boyle quite simply has broken the rules, her story is like a Hollywood movie, but this time it’s real life and a really talented, nice lady who has won.’

It was the culmination of an extraordinary month, even by Susan’s standards, and a mark of just how far she’d come. Elaine Paige wasn’t the half of it: Susan had her sights set on even greater matters. Just a few weeks earlier, Susan, a devout Catholic, had expressed a wish to sing for Pope Benedict XVI: ‘Apart from being a singer and being accepted by people and bringing them happiness, my biggest dream is to meet His Holiness the Pope,’ she’d explained. ‘I would love to sing “Panis Angelicus” for him. Religion is the backbone of my life; it has given me strength to go forward, in particular when my mother died.’ It was an ambition that would have seemed unlikely a few months earlier, but now anything was possible. She’d already met one of her idols, Donny Osmond - ‘It was a dream come true. He was lovely’ - at his mansion in LA; was there anything Susan would not be able to do?

In the run-up to her trip to New York, two other people who were staggered by what was going on were Ant and Dec. The Geordie duo were the presenters of
Britain’s Got Talent
, and while they weren’t as closely linked with Susan as Simon Cowell, they were seasoned players in the entertainment world and had been utterly shocked by the media frenzy SuBo had whipped up. Far from having a non-stop route to the top, Ant and Dec had suffered plenty of setbacks along the way, so they knew from experience how tough the showbiz world can be. They had hosted
Britain’s Got Talent
from the outset, and if anyone had their finger on the audience’s pulse, both within the studio and in the country at large, it was those two, and they professed themselves to be amazed.

‘I have to say, even watching her performance then, the audience were great. The judges were kind of surprised,’ said Ant. ‘We thought, That’s a nice story. I never anticipated it being as big as it would be. Never in a million years. She was really nice and a bit nervous and we didn’t expect anything much of her. Then she brought the house down.’

Dec agreed. ‘We talk about people being overnight sensations, but she literally was,’ he said. ‘She was the first global overnight superstar. To go from being that little lady in a small village in Scotland to being known all over the world and having famous Hollywood stars Twittering about you must have made her head spin.’ But Susan appeared to be coping, even though she could hardly believe what was going on. Her trip to New York wasn’t her first visit to the States in this strange new life she was leading; she had already been to the centre of Planet Showbiz - Los Angeles - when she was working on her CD.

‘There were great crowds waiting for us at LA airport,’ she told the
Daily Express
. ‘It was quite something. Nothing a woman like me was used to. But I found Americans to be incredibly warm and friendly and very open. It was quite something to be in Hollywood. It’s like stepping back in time, to another time and place. The hotel I was staying in? Apparently Frank Sinatra used to take his women back there. And I dipped my toes into the pool Grace Kelly swam in. I can’t wait to visit again.’

There was also Susan’s changed appearance, about which her delight was palpable. In her late forties, she suddenly looked more soignée than she ever had in her life. ‘I brush up quite well,’ she continued, giggling slightly, Cinderella wearing the glass slipper at last. ‘I’m forty-eight . . . but it’s only a number, for goodness’ sake. It’s a bit like a cygnet to a swan. Now I seem a sophisticated lady. But even though the outwardness has changed, inside I’m still the same, but a bit more refined in some ways. I keep reading that I’ve had Botox, and my teeth whitening but I haven’t. I’ve just been working hard and lost a bit of weight.’

With the release of Susan’s début album imminent, the publicity machine moved up a gear, and two very high-profile appearances were planned for her. The second was the aforementioned gig at the Rockefeller Center, but before that there would be a major appearance in the UK on Simon Cowell’s other brain-child,
The X Factor
, and many people felt that for Susan this was the biggest triumph of all.

It was said that she thought her only chance of fame came from an appearance on
Britain’s Got Talent
, and not its counterpart, because
The X Factor
is more looks oriented. Susan felt that because of this she would never have got through the auditions. Now she was being asked to appear on
X Factor
not as a contestant, but as a performer, the latest in a line of extremely high-profile singers that included
X Factor
judge Cheryl Cole and Mariah Carey, who was a guest on the same night as Susan.

The song she was due to perform in front of the crowd was ‘Wild Horses’. For most performers, this would involve a rush to the stylist, the salon and the gym, but here again Susan played it differently. She was spotted taking the 557 bus to nearby Bathgate where, surrounded by well-wishers, she posed for pictures and signed autographs. She then made her way to the local department store, M&Co, emerging an hour later with a bag full of new clothes. If she was turning into a diva, there were certainly no signs of it yet.

Her undiva-like behaviour nearly led to a disaster, though, when Susan dyed her hair an unfortunate shade of red. She didn’t pay much heed to it until she arrived at the TV studios, but with only three hours to go before she was due to perform, emergency action was needed and a team of hairdressers was summoned to sort out the problem. A short while later, with her hair a more attractive darker shade of brown, Susan was ready to sing.