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.
Her performance wasn’t helped by the fact that she had developed a slight cough, and it was actually her second, utterly flawless take that ultimately made it to the screen. The audience didn’t care, though: Susan got a st
anding ovation before she had so much as sung a note and a rapturous reception afterwards. It was ‘bloody great’ to be back, she said, adding, ‘I feel great being back here, I feel at home and I loved performing. The public should watch out for the album.’
Presiding over it all, of course, was the ubiquitous Simon Cowell. Cowell has become, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the most influential person in British showbiz circles - and increasingly in American ones, too - and this was his moment. ‘I feel so proud of you, and it’s lovely to have you here,’ he told Susan, but it was so much more than that. Without meaning to sound coy or cast aspersions, Simon was the fairy godmother here: it was he who had taken a shy little Scottish lady and transformed her into something quite different: a woman who was inspiring the world. In Susan he had picked the right person, for she had the talent to carry it off, but it was still Cowell who had facilitated her success and been the brains behind the most astonishing début the world had ever seen. This was Susan’s and Simon’s moment. Between the two of them, they were changing the face of musical history and redefining the limits of what could be achieved by whom. Shy little Susan had taken on the world, and with a little help from her friend Cowell, she had won.
Cinderella Sings
Saturday, 11 April 2009. Britain was grouping around the nation’s television sets, hunkering down to watch one of the most popular shows on TV, Britain’s Got Talent. It was the first episode of the new series and no one had a clue what they were about to see that night.
In the theatre in Glasgow where the show was recorded, the three judges - Simon Cowell, Piers Morgan and the actress Amanda Holden - were seated at their desk. Behind them the audience roared with anticipation as each new act came on, with those roars frequently turning to derision as one act after another floundered, failing to live up to its promise. The mood soon turned to frank incredulity when a small, plump lady with unkempt grey hair, exuberant eyebrows and wearing an ill-fitting cream dress marched on to the stage, showing no discernable sign of being able to do anything very much. The cameras panned across the audience’s faces: eyebrows were raised and bemused expressions seemed to be the order of the day. Who on earth was this? And how did she think she was going to justify being here tonight?
Simon, with his customary dispassionate sneer, took up pen and paper. ‘Right,’ he began, ‘what’s your name, darlin’?’
‘My name is Susan Boyle,’ replied the figure on the stage. She had a strong Scottish accent and there was a little nervous intake of breath, but otherwise she was calm.
‘OK, er, Susan, where are you from?’
‘I’m from Blackburn, near Bathgate, West Lothian.’
‘It’s a big town?’
‘It’s a sort of collection of, er, it’s a collection,’ Susan’s hand circled desperately in the air, ‘villages.’ Her nerves were palpable now, but still under control. ‘I had to think there!’
‘And, how old are you, Susan?’
‘I am forty-seven.’ This provoked hoots and catcalls from the crowd, to which Susan responded with the hip wiggle that has become her trademark. ‘And that’s just one side of me,’ she continued, wiggling more than ever. Piers wrinkled his nose in disbelief. ‘What is this?’ his expression seemed to say. Meanwhile, the camera panned to Ant and Dec, who were in hysterics backstage. ‘I love it!’ cried Ant, doing some wiggling himself.
Simon, by now wearing the expression of a weary schoolteacher faced with a couple of misbehaving nine-year-old boys, went on. ‘Wow,’ he said rather disapprovingly. ‘OK, what’s the dream?’
‘I’m trying to be a professional singer,’ replied Susan. That got a laugh from the audience, though not a sympathetic one, and more expressions of stunned disbelief flashed across the screen.
‘And why hasn’t it worked out so far, Susan?’
‘I’ve never been given the chance before, but here’s hoping it’ll change,’ said Susan with an expansive wave to the audience. Fat chance, they might have replied.
‘OK, and who would you like to be as successful as?’
‘Elaine Paige,’ said Susan, prompting more calls from the audience who were definitely not on her side at this point.
‘What are you going to sing tonight?’ interjected Piers.
‘I’m going to sing “I Dreamed A Dream” from Les Miserables,’ said Susan to more hooting from the stalls. Amanda Holden looked suitably unimpressed.
‘OK? It’s on,’ said Piers.
Susan turned to Ant and Dec on the side of the stage and gave them a thumbs-up. The music began to swell in the background and Susan brought the microphone to her mouth. She smiled - she, if no one else, knew what the audience was about to hear - then opened her mouth and out it came: ‘I dreamed a dream in time gone by . . .’
The reaction was immediate: the audience exploded into cheers, and it was real cheering this time. Meanwhile the camera panned across the faces of the three judges, all of whom were registering amazement, shock and disbelief. On she went, causing the audience to get increasingly worked up.
‘You didn’t expect that now, did you? Did you? No,’ Ant asked the camera as he and Dec looked stunned by what was happening on stage.
By this time Piers was clapping, Simon was beaming and the audience was getting to its feet to give Susan the first of several ovations she would receive over the course of her performance.
It was getting better and better out on stage. Susan’s voice was soaring and she changed key without faltering, hitting the high notes and drawing out the full beauty of the song. Amanda was also on her feet applauding and Ant and Dec were chortling like naughty schoolboys. ‘Look at that!’ cried Ant. Look indeed.
Susan was beaming, totally in command of the stage and utterly different from the shy little woman who had walked out there. This was the voice of an astounding singer, and she finished to more rapturous applause and another standing ovation. As the music came to an end, Susan blew a kiss to the audience and began to walk from the stage.
This was not according to plan, and there was some pantomime action in the background as Ant and Dec motioned at her to go back. It was then that the full force of what had happened began to make itself felt.
‘All right,’ said Simon. ‘Thank you very much, Susan. Piers?’
‘Without a doubt that was the biggest surprise I have had in three years of this show,’ Piers began. ‘When you stood there with that cheeky grin and said, “I want to be like Elaine Paige,” everyone was laughing at you. No one is laughing now. That was stunning. An incredible performance.’ On stage, Susan was beaming. She was beginning to realize what had begun and blew out another kiss to the audience, who were eating out of her hand and roaring with delight.
‘Amazing,’ Piers continued. ‘I’m reeling in shock. I don’t know about you two.’
‘I am so thrilled, because I know that everybody was against you,’ said Amanda bluntly. ‘I honestly think that we were all being very cynical and I think that’s the biggest wake-up call ever, and I just want to say that it was a complete privilege listening to that. It was inspirational.’ The audience burst out into yet another round of applause.
‘Thank you very much,’ Susan replied.
Simon couldn’t help playing the joker. ‘I knew the minute you walked out on that stage that we were going to hear something extraordinary, and I was right,’ he said, to laughter from the audience and an admonishment of, ‘Oh, Simon!’ from Susan herself.
‘What a lot of tosh!’ cried Dec.
‘Susan,’ Simon continued, ‘you are a little tiger, aren’t you?’
‘I don’t know about that,’ said Susan.
‘You are. OK, moment of truth. Yes or no?’
‘The biggest yes I have ever given anybody,’ said Piers as Susan began to laugh in amazed delight.
‘Amanda?’
‘Yes, definitely.’ Susan was beginning to look a little stunned now.
‘Susan Boyle,’ said Simon, ‘you can go back to the village w
ith your head held high, with three yeses.’
Susan couldn’t contain herself. She shook her fists in the air, did a little victory dance on the spot and finally left the stage, blowing one last kiss to an audience which was on its feet again. It had not only been one of the most extraordinary moments on a televised talent show, but one of the most extraordinary moments ever on a television screen.
Susan had had a little chat with Ant and Dec prior to going on stage, so the viewer at home was quite as bemused as everyone in the studio by what they were seeing. Chatting to the two of them, Susan confessed she was nearly forty-eight, that she had a cat called Pebbles and had never been married or kissed, a comment she would come to regret in the fullness of time given the amount of media attention it garnered. She came across as an awkward little thing, confessing to nerves, but wanting to get out there and give it her all. And then, of course, she did just that.
‘I’m going to make that audience rock,’ she told Ant and Dec, who looked as if they wouldn’t count on it, but were far too polite to say so.
The reaction in the next day’s papers was similarly astonished. That such a stunning voice could come from someone who wasn’t groomed to within an inch of her life was greeted with sheer disbelief: ‘She has a soaring, beautiful voice that could grace a heavenly choir - but self-taught singer Susan Boyle has the hair-do from hell,’ proclaimed Mark Jefferies in the Mirror. ‘And the scruffy 47-year-old stunned judges on Britain’s Got Talent when she opened her mouth and produced “the biggest surprise ever” on the show.’
He called it a ‘stunning performance’ and he was not alone. The Daily Telegraph called her a ‘singing marvel’, the Daily Star reported how the audience was ‘stunned’ by her ‘amazing’ voice, and the Sunday Express commented on her ‘electrifying performance’. More amazingly still, the sort of people who wouldn’t normally have noticed a lady of a certain age giving it her all in a moment that would change her life joined in. The Hollywood star Demi Moore tweeted that it was one of the most moving things she had ever seen and Oprah Winfrey wanted her on the show. A clip of the audition found its way on to YouTube, where it promptly became - and still is - the hottest thing online. At the time of writing, it had received over 35 million hits on that channel and well over three times that worldwide.
Susan Boyle Page 2
