Susan Boyle (8 page)

The most followed user of Twitter in the world is reputed to be the American actor Ashton Kutcher and immediately Susan’s YouTube clip was shown, he raved on Twitter: ‘This just made my night.’ His wife replied: ‘This just made my night.’

His wife just happened to be actress Demi Moore, star of
Ghost, Indecent Proposal
and
A Few Good Men
.

Over 1.5 million people ‘follow’ the couple on Twitter and thousands of them clicked on the links. Within 72 hours of the original broadcast, four million people had watched 48-year-old Susan’s performance. A show source said, ‘Thanks to Demi’s posting, Susan is now a genuine global megastar.’

As cast recordings of versions of
Les Misérables
entered the download charts as a result of the impetus Susan had given, she was given the good news about the ‘endorsement’ by the A-list Hollywood couple. It didn’t make too much of an impact on her. A friend said, ‘Susan had no idea who Ashton Kutcher was. Although she’d heard of Demi Moore, she didn’t really know who she was. When I explained she was shocked and extremely grateful for their support.’

Susan also became a highly prized interviewee. CNN’s
Larry King was more used to questioning Presidents and State leaders then Scottish singers, but soon he was talking live to Susan on his top-rated show. Also in on the conversation was Piers Morgan.

King asked: ‘How did you feel, by the way, Susan, when you came onstage?’ And she told him: ‘It felt very daunting at first, but I gradually picked up enough courage. I was very confident with the title.’

King then said: ‘Now, people laughed, though, when you walked out. Some even rolled their eyes, they made faces, who was this lady? Didn’t that hurt you a little?’

‘That didn’t bother me because I knew I had to get on with my act,’ Susan replied.

‘So you had no question about your singing?’

‘Well, I wasn’t sure how I would be received so I just thought I’d give it a whirl.’

Larry King then brought Morgan in. ‘All right. You’re a judge, Piers Morgan. What did you make of this whole thing?’

‘I sort of feel like apologising to Susan,’ Morgan said. ‘Since Susan, I know you’re listening, I’m sorry, because we did not give you anything like the respect we should have done when you first came out because it had been a long day in Glasgow, in Scotland, and lots of terrible auditions, and then you came out and we thought you were going to be a bit of a joke act, to be honest with you. And then I can remember every time I watched a clip it takes me back to that second when you had begun to sing,
and I had never heard a more surprising, extraordinary voice coming out of somebody so unexpected.’

He added: ‘But what’s astounding is the speed and the breadth of her success. I mean, I’ve been getting calls today from China, from Russia, from Australia. All around America, all around Europe. Susan Boyle has gone from total obscurity in the space of five days to global superstar and that’s just extraordinary. I think that within a year, whatever happens to Susan on the show, whether she wins or not, I think we’re going to see a number one album around the world. I think you’re going to see a world tour and I personally just want to say to Susan, thank you for coming on the show.’

Morgan spoke of her appeal. ‘You know, the great appeal and charm of Susan is the way she is. The way she looks, the way she acts. And I would like to extend an invitation to you to have dinner with me in London, Susan.’

Susan accepted.

She even managed to sing ‘My Heart Will Go On’ from
Titanic
totally unaccompanied, causing battle-hardened King to smile and say, ‘Amazing. You’re not kidding. Sinatra ought to be reborn. Susan Boyle, thank you. Best of luck. You’ll be singing for the Queen, Susan, I predict it.’

There’s probably only one television host in the world who can ‘outrank’ Larry King – and Susan was destined
to meet her soon, too. That person was, of course, Oprah Winfrey – not so much a television personality but a way of life in America. It is a measure of the fascination that Susan held for Americans, that all the major TV shows were scrabbling to have her on, and Oprah was no exception.

Her talk show was the most watched of its kind ever and had made Winfrey rich. Very rich. She has been described as the richest African-American ever and the most influential woman in the world. Not bad for a poor kid from Mississippi who became pregnant at 14 yet went on to become a billionaire famed for her philanthropy. Her support of Barack Obama played a major role in his rise to becoming President. An appearance on her show is the Holy Grail for many with films, records and books to promote. And yet she was after Susan.

A film crew from her show flew to Blackburn and Susan was to be linked from there to the studio in America. It was to be a special ‘The World’s Got Talent’, displaying some of the acts from the ‘
Talent
…’ shows over the globe.

There was only one slight drawback. After her impromptu performances on other morning programmes and the Larry King show, she wouldn’t be allowed to sing. The reasoning was simple: the
BGT
bosses feared the other
Britain’s Got Talent
acts would feel she was getting ‘special treatment’ and would have an unfair advantage over them before the contest ended.

Susan was even barred from singing in The Happy Valley Hotel, as none of the potential finalists were allowed to sing in public. ‘All of our acts are advised not to perform in public if they have got through to the next stages of the contest. We want them to be seen first and foremost on
Britain’s Got Talent
’ was the explanation.

Nevertheless, she did contribute something special to the show, Oprah and her team decided subtitles should be used to help the American audience understand Susan during the pre-recorded chat.

Susan wore some make-up and a touch of red lipstick, to go with her yellow blouse and a sand-coloured jumper. Asked by Oprah if she wanted a makeover Susan screwed up her face and said, ‘It depends on what you mean by a makeover.’

When Oprah mentioned her new haircut and clothes, Boyle added, ‘I did a bit. Just to tidy myself up like any other female would have done.’

As the studio audience laughed, Simon Cowell, who was a guest on the Oprah show in Chicago, chipped in, ‘Very good answer.’ He also said that when he first saw Susan at the audition, ‘This lady came up, and I’m thinking; “This will take five seconds and I can go have a cup of tea.”’

That changed when she began ‘I Dreamed A Dream’.

‘She knew we were going to have that reaction and just to see that look of satisfaction on her face midway through – it was one of my favourite moments,’ Cowell said.

Susan said she was ‘loving every second’ of her newfound fame and it was ‘like a dream come true’.

And it wasn’t just show business celebrities who were enthusing over Susan. Prime Minister Gordon Brown was questioned about her by Kofi Annan, Ghanaian Nobel Peace Prize winner and ex-Secretary General of the United Nations.

He asked the Premier for the lowdown on the Scottish singing sensation after delivering a speech at the Adam Smith College in Kirkcaldy. The two men struck up a conversation as they headed to a reception and the first thing Mr Annan said was, ‘So, tell me about Susan Boyle?’ As the men walked side by side Mr Brown looked deep in thought as he told Susan’s story to one of the world’s most powerful men.

Annan smiled broadly as Brown told him, ‘Well, it’s absolutely amazing. This woman has come from nowhere and has become a celebrity all over the world. And she comes from a wee village in Scotland.’

Former Downing Street spin-doctor Alastair Campbell advised politicians to recognise her ‘authenticity’.

In a post on his blog, Campbell said: ‘If politicians tend to read the Sunday papers with a mix of horror and trepidation, one person who must read them week after week with a sense of his own skills in shaping the popular culture agenda is Simon Cowell. The overnight sensation that is Susan Boyle and her 25 million YouTube hits is the latest chapter in Cowell’s story. If
there is a lesson from her success for politicians, it is authenticity. It is the only communication that works.’

Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond, who was also from West Lothian, sent a letter of support. The SNP leader said: ‘Please accept my warmest congratulations to you for your stunning performance on the ITV show
Britain’s Got Talent
. I would like to wish you the very best of success for the remainder of the competition and in your ambitions for the future.’

Emails from admirers in Australia, Canada and the United States were published on West Lothian Council’s website. One fan from Pennsylvania wrote: ‘Your town should look up to this wonderful woman and be so very proud of what she has accomplished.’

More and more assessments of Susan and her impact were being made. And each one seemed more complicated and highbrow than the last.

Dr Robert Canfield, Professor of Anthology at Washington University in St Louis, Missouri, published an academic essay about the Boyle phenomenon, entitled ‘Susan Boyle And The Power Of The Moral Imagination’

‘Buried within the human psyche are feelings, yearnings, anxieties too deep for words, usually,’ he wrote. ‘Always it is something outside ourselves that touches us, somehow, where we feel most deeply. At such moments we remember that we are humans – not merely creatures but human beings, profoundly and deeply shaped by a moral sensibility so powerful that it
breaks through our inhibitors; it can burst out, explode into public view, to our own astonishment.’

Dr Canfield said, in response to emailed questions, that Boyle captured ‘the hopes of a multitude.’

Her performance resonates with millions, he said, because ‘most of us in our heart of hearts have severe doubts about ourselves. So when a Susan Boyle appears on stage before a clearly condescending audience in a society that can read class status in every move, the hairdo, the dress, she appears as a loser. And we feel for her. We see how precarious her position is, how vulnerable she is, and we feel for her,’ he said.

‘We can see in her an objectification of what we fear about ourselves. So when she comes forth with that voice, that music – as if we have discovered Judy Garland at the age of 47 – we are thrilled. She’s going to make it, we think. She’s going to win (!). And we unconsciously invest ourselves in her achievement.’

Patricia Williams, a professor of law at Columbia University in New York, likened Susan’s story to the election of Barack Obama. ‘Boyle’s ability to up-end conventional preconceptions is akin to what the “black is beautiful” movement of the 1970s tried to accomplish: a debunking of surface-based biases in favour of deeper commitments to fairness, intelligence, courage, humility, patience, re-examined aesthetics and the willingness to listen.

‘Dismissing her – or anyone – based on careless
expectations about what age or lack of employment supposedly signify is the habit of mind common to all forms of prejudice.’

As always, there are voices that go ever so slightly against the crowd – not always too tastefully, either. In one case it was
South Park
, the surreal and often crude, cartoon series that mentioned Susan in an episode in which the characters run off to Somalia to become pirates.

In a letter to his parents, Kyle’s little brother Ike writes: ‘Dear Mommy and Daddy – I am running away. I am sorry, but I can no longer handle the monotony of middle-class life. Everyone at school is a f**king idiot and if one more person talked to me about that Susan Boyle performance I was going to puke my b***s out through my mouth.’

That little dig was nothing, however, compared to the criticism Susan was eventually to receive from Sharon Osbourne, wife of ageing heavy metal rocker Ozzy Osbourne.

The former
X Factor
judge said Susan had been ‘hit by the ugly stick’, adding, ‘I like everybody to do well. Even somebody that looks like a slapped a***. God bless her. It’s like, “You go girl”. She does look like a hairy a***hole.’ Sharon added in a US radio interview: ‘She is a lovely lady. You just want to say “God bless” and here’s a Gillette razor. I didn’t realise she had facial hair – I couldn’t get past the Gene Wilder wig. God gave her talent. But he hit her with a f**king ugly stick.’

Ten days later Osbourne had to eat humble pie. She apologised on her Facebook and Twitter pages, saying: ‘Susan Boyle is a lovely, gracious woman and I took advantage. I would never want to be responsible for hurting Susan. I apologise for getting a cheap laugh at her expense.’

If
South Park
and Sharon had been a little less than enthusiastic, the same couldn’t be said of the world’s leading cartoon series,
The Simpsons
.

The roll-call of the great and the good who have been mentioned or made animated appearances in the show is practically endless but includes Ringo Starr, Dustin Hoffman, Sting, Bob Hope, Tom Jones, Elizabeth Taylor, Meryl Streep, Paul and Linda McCartney, Elton John, Mel Gibson, Tony Blair and JK Rowling.

Now Susan was to join that company when she was mentioned in an episode called ‘Springfield’s Got Talent’. Homer Simpson tells a Simon Cowell-type character, who is questioning him, ‘My name is Homer Simpson, I’m 39 and, well, I’ve never been kissed.’ He adds, ‘My dream is to become a great singer like Susan Boyle.’ Unlike Susan, poor Homer was doomed to fail and his attempts at singing were met with a chorus of boos.

There was no booing to be heard back in the real world, however. By the end of that first week, six days after her first appearance, more than 26 million people had seen the YouTube clip, with the number jumping from 1 million to 5.5 million in just one 24-hour period
alone at the start of the week, making it the most watched video on the site globally that week. During the week Susan gave over 60 interviews. There were a couple of places where she wasn’t making comments on the events of that crazy week, however: Susan didn’t have a Facebook account and as for Twitter – well, she’d never heard of it!

CHAPTER SIX