Susan Boyle (6 page)

Susan certainly hadn’t seen a penny yet. By this stage in any series of
Britain’s Got Talent
, none of the contestants would have earned a thing, but Susan found herself in that odd space between the very famous and the very rich. While she was certainly becoming the former, she was nowhere near the latter. She had the
Britain’s Got Talent
team to look after her - although it wasn’t yet clear quite how much she was going to need it - but she had no money to lavish on makeovers and security. She was already in an extremely pressurized position and this just added to everything she had to worry about.

The internet hits reached 130 million, at least 80 million more than the viewings for President Obama’s inauguration speech. ‘I am truly gobsmacked,’ said Susan. ‘This is unbelievable. The reaction has been amazing.’ She celebrated by having a slight eyebrow trim - an altogether sleeker Susan was beginning to emerge.

And still the celebrity endorsements continued. It seemed as though the most famous and blessed people on the planet wanted to be sprinkled with the gold dust that had transformed Susan’s life.

‘She gave me the chill bumps when I heard her,’ said Sheryl Crow.

‘I got emailed the link and was most impressed,’ said Billy Zane. ‘I enjoyed the comeuppance the audience got. It was a milestone in compassion.’

‘My fifteen-year-old son said, “That makes me so happy,”’ said Anthony Edwards.

The performance was ‘warm and friendly’, said Sidney Poitier.

Even Tony Blair got in on the act: ‘Susan is certainly unofficially probably doing more good than most of the official channels of diplomacy,’ he said. And where Blair was to be found, so was his erstwhile spin doctor, Alistair Campbell, who thought politicians could take a leaf out of Susan’s book: it was her authenticity, he said, that made her such a success.

Someone else touched by Susan’s gold dust was Amanda Holden. She was, of course, on the audition clip that had been beamed all over the world, and in the wake of that, Amanda had been interviewed innumerable times about Susan, not least on American television. It seemed the Americans liked what they saw, and why not? Simon and Piers were stars in the States, so why not Amanda?

She had certainly been keen on the idea in the past, saying, ‘I want that for myself. I bloody well would like to go over there.’ And now it seemed she was going to get the chance. CBS offered her a job co-anchoring
The Early Show
after
Britain’s Got Talent
finished on 30 May - and all because of the worldwide interested generated by Susan. It all served to enhance the fairytale quality of the story - not only had Susan’s life changed, everyone around her was experiencing good fortune too.

Amanda continued to emphasize that Susan shouldn’t change, however. ‘Everyone was against Susan when she walked on that stage,’ she told the American audience. ‘We all were. We were all too cynical. It was a complete privilege to listen to Susan, but she needs to stay exactly as she is, because that’s the reason we love her. A makeover can perhaps come later, when she’s signed the album deal and conquered America.’ In actual fact, the makeover had already begun.

Susan’s changing appearance was, in reality, a physical manifestation of her change in status. No one had taken her seriously before, but they were now, and as her popularity grew, so she came closer to the commonly held ideal of what makes a woman attractive. However much Amanda and co. might have wanted Susan to stay the same, the fact remained that Susan
wanted
to change.

She had never been allowed to feel that she could compete with the rest of the world on any basis, be it as a sexually attractive woman or a person who could have an interesting life in her own right. Until now she had been daughter, sister, aunt, carer, and not a great deal more. Cinderella, to whom she was increasingly compared, rose from the ashes to don her finery, and metaphorically, Susan was doing exactly the same.

Meanwhile Susan’s makeover was gradually taking place. Her eyebrows were noticeably slimmer, her hair had been trimmed and now it went from grey to auburn. Susan’s wardrobe underwent a similar metamorphosis when she was pictured wearing smart trousers and a light brown jacket, an outfit that was a world away from her appearance a week earlier.

 

All this time, it was increasingly apparent that in private her voice had been stunning family and friends for years.

The
Mirror
unearthed an old family video of Susan singing ‘I Don’t Know How To Love Him’ from the musical
Jesus Christ Superstar
when she was just twenty-five. ‘It was a very emotional night,’ her brother Gerry told the paper. ‘It goes quiet when Susan sings; it always does. She always has that effect. The week before she went on
Britain’s Got Talent
she sang “Ave Maria” at my mother-in-law’s funeral and stunned the church.’

Extraordinary aspects of Susan’s story just kept emerging. It turned out the Boyle family, or at least some elements of it, were moving in rather higher echelons than had been previously suspected, as none other than Sir David Frost was a friend. He had met Gerry, and another brother John, twenty years previously, when the brothers suggested setting up a property firm based on Sir David’s television show
Through The Keyhole
.

‘We’re still friends with him and he gets in touch regularly,’ said John, who also lives in Blackburn. ‘He will definitely be in touch when he realizes what Susan is doing. That’s just the kind of guy he is.’ Indeed, David had been one of the first to call the family after their mother Bridget died two years earlier.

Susan’s appearance continued to change subtly, with every new brush of lipstick being excitedly reported by the press, not to mention her first outing in heels and a sleekly fashionable pashmina.

In many ways, Susan was going through what most women do in their teens: learning how to use make-up, finding out what suited her and what didn’t, experimenting with new hairdos and having fun. And why shouldn’t she? Susan’s life had been tough so far, but as the writer George Eliot once said, ‘It’s never too late to be what you might have been.’

It wasn’t long before the real experts in their fields were hauled in. Nicky Clarke, the celebrity hairdresser, had a consultation with Susan, and while his assessment of her was a little cruel, he could certainly see potential. ‘At the moment she looks a bit like a man in drag, but there’s a lot of potential there, and when I’m finished she is going to look really beautiful, ’ he said. ‘I’m going to soften her hair with low-lights, which will freshen the face up. She will look stunning.’ The duckling was turning into a swan.

 

It was only two weeks into the new series, but although Susan was clearly a hot favourite to win, there were plenty of cynics who felt sure that Cowell and co. had a few tricks up their sleeves, and the latest sensation to be pulled out of the bag was Hollie Steel, a ten-year-old child with a fine singing voice. She, too, had a story to tell, in her case a serious bout of pneumonia when she was four that nearly resulted in losing a lung when she was treated in The Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital.

‘She was in hospital for three months and there were moments when it was life and death - she was all skin and bones and doctors thought she might not recover,’ her mother Nina said. ‘Even when she stabilized, they told me they would have to remove a lung. I was in bits and at times thought she might not make it, or if she did, she wouldn’t be able to lead a normal life. Now she has this amazing voice that melts your heart - it’s a miracle she can sing at all.

‘They told us they would have to remove a lung and that if that was the case it would lead to curvature of the spine and muscles around the heart twisting as she grew, because there would be nothing supporting her side,’ Nina continued. ‘She had two major operations to save her lung and thankfully started responding to antibiotics. When she first started singing she had this powerful voice on her and I asked a specialist singing teacher to check her out in case it was dangerous after all that had happened to her. But luckily they said she was fine. I love to listen to them [Hollie and her brother Joshua] both sing; it makes me so proud.’

This was what Susan was up against, not just in terms of talent, but in how much human interest the stories could provide. But however much stories about brave youngsters battling illness might have filled the papers, there was nothing to compare to her. Susan’s story wasn’t only inspiring, it was moving: it gave hope to every person who felt they had lost out in life’s lottery and who hoped that one day their fortunes would change. Susan was proof it could be done.

In the background, however, ructions were beginning to emerge. Susan’s family, while delighted about her success, were becoming concerned about the pressure she was under, and were worried that she wouldn’t be able to cope. There was talk of taking her away to the United States to escape all the commotion, while her brother Gerry, perhaps unwisely, claimed she was now ‘too big’ for
Britain’s Got Talent
. ‘If Susan isn’t removed or eliminated there’s going to be a riot in the street,’ he told the
Irish Sunday Mirror
. ‘There is a public appetite for a single but no product for people to buy.
BGT
need to step in and sort this out. The silence coming from
BGT
is causing a frenzy. We are all getting sucked into it and it’s getting a bit much now.’

Then there was Susan’s mental state. ‘When I last spoke to Susan she sounded exhausted,’ Gerry continued. ‘I said, “How are you?” and she said, “Oh, Gerard, I’ve been here, there and everywhere.” She’s been up and down to London for meetings with Sony. I could tell she was shattered. I said to her, “Get off the phone and get to bed. You need to rest.” Susan is frustrated. She’s not thinking about big cars and Bentleys. All she wants to do is sing, but she’s not being allowed to do that. The pressure would be much less, and the whole thing much better, if there was a management team to look after her.’

What Gerard didn’t seem to take on board was that Susan’s silence was building up expectations even more. No one yet knew if this was a one-off or whether she would be able to carry it through, and while it was putting enormous pressure on Susan’s shoulders, it was also setting up a situation in which she would prosper if she pulled it off, though if she didn’t it would all come to nought - but that’s showbusiness. Ultimately, if she was to have the career she wanted, she would have to be able to cope with the downsides, too.

Gerry was also concerned about the huge press attention Susan was receiving. ‘I have stayed away from what used to be our family house because there are so many people camped out there,’ he said. ‘It’s been like a scene from the film
Notting Hill
every time she opens the front door. I know Susan thinks she’s staying in that house to her dying day, but someone needs to step in and do what’s right for her. Is there a management deal or not? I imagined Cowell would move forward on this. But she’s got too big for the show. I understand Cowell wants to protect his show, but they can’t have their cake and eat it. Everyone wants to know why Susan isn’t going to America and why there isn’t a CD in the shops. They want to keep her solely in their eyes as a contestant on
Britain’s Got Talent
. But the time for keeping her within the confines of
Britain’s Got Talent
has passed. This isn’t working.’

If Gerry was deliberately trying to rile Cowell, he couldn’t have done a better job, and this wasn’t an end to it. ‘We’ve got a star on our hands and the appetite for her first record is huge,’ Gerry continued. ‘From a business point of view they are not capitalizing on her success. Any established act would love to crack America, but Susan’s done it in eight days. So do we keep on going and take up these offers or - for the good of the show - do we ignore the fact everyone is baying for a product? They can’t just sit back and ignore this phenomenon just because she’s a contestant.’ In actual fact, the last thing they were doing was ignoring Susan, and Gerry’s comments weren’t helping matters at all.

It was certainly true that Susan was feeling the full glare of the media in a way that few people have to cope with, and that she had neither the experience nor the cynicism to deal with it. There was a permanent encampment of journalists and camera crews outside her front door, while her every move was monitored, analysed and examined under the media microscope. But the fact remained that so far Susan had appeared on
Britain’s Got Talent
only once, and that she had a far better chance of establishing a long-term career if she stayed with Simon Cowell, a man who knows the music business inside out. Susan knew that, too, and stuck with it, while expectation built ever higher and the entire world began to dream her dream.

Cowell himself was extremely unamused by Gerry’s suggestions, and understandably so. There had been unconfirmed reports that the
Britain’s Got Talent
team were worried about Susan’s makeover, believing that much of her appeal lay in the contrast between her appearance and her voice, and Gerry’s suggestions that she should leave the show prompted an outburst in reply.