Piers talks to The Sun about the phenomenon that has swept the world - SuBo!

November 30, 2009

NOT many things send shivers down my spine.

Seeing paparazzi photos of Cherie Blair topless once did, though not in a pleasurable way.

But in terms of feeling goosebumps of a warm, positive, glowing variety then I’ve experienced this twice this year - thanks to Susan Boyle.

The second time was last week when I watched a YouTube clip of her singing I Dreamed A Dream live in a New York plaza to thousands of spectators and millions of American TV viewers.

It was 8am, snow was on the ground and she was jetlagged and nervous.

But Susan sang so beautifully that I could see many of the crowd in tears. I’m not ashamed to admit that a lump came to my throat, too.

It set the seal on an extraordinary year.

She began it as an anonymous lady living alone with her cat, Pebbles, near Glasgow. She has ended it as a genuine international superstar whose debut album is, unbelievably, the fastest selling in history.

I last saw Susan when she appeared on the America’s Got Talent finale in Los Angeles last month. I surprised her in her dressing room, where she was sitting on a tiny chair surrounded by the biggest entourage I’ve encountered since Mariah Carey.

She jumped up, and threw herself into my arms. “PIERSY BABY!” she cried, mimicking her on-stage warcry on Britain’s Got Talent, shrieking with laughter and smothering me in kisses. “I’ve had a wonderful few months, recording the album and now coming to America. I am living my dream, truly.” And I believe she is.

But that doesn’t mean she finds it all easy. Before performing Susan got so nervous that she was sick.

But there is nothing new about nerves. What matters is how you deal with them, and she rose to that challenge magnificently. The Americans loved every second.

She’s ridiculously famous there. They love her religious affinity, her modesty, her Rocky Balboa-style life story, that she’s not a Size Zero and the sheer guts and spirit that springs out of her.

Robin Williams gatecrashed my dressing room on a big US chat show to spend 20 minutes grilling me about Susan and her initial BGT audition, seen by 300million on YouTube.

“That clip of her singing was just extraordinary,” he said, “So inspiring. She’s got a great voice.”

Even filming in China recently, none of the locals had heard of Simon Cowell but many HAD heard of Susan.

It’s not all been plain sailing. She has been exposed to the greatest attention ever lavished on a single talent show contestant. She’s still showing the odd sign of finding it tough to deal with. Susan was photographed sucking her thumb after her performance in New York, and apparently in tears.

Some say this is evidence that she is not mentally fit to be a star, that the whole experience is too much for her.

To which I say: Poppycock. Susan’s not some frail, fragile waif. She’s a tough lassie who has had a hard life but battled through it with courage, humility and fortitude.

She spent most of her adult life caring for her sick mother and helping with her local church community.

But ticking away inside her was one great dream, and having got her shot at achieving it, nothing is going to stop her now - and she doesn’t want anything or anyone trying to stop her.

The first time she gave me goosebumps was when the 47-year-old spinster did her now famous BGT audition in January and I heard her sing that song.

It was a cold, drab evening in Glasgow, and I’d been forced to endure a particularly long, tedious day of dreadful bagpipers, shocking, kilt-wearing wailers and horrendously bad Highland dancers.

Hilarity

“God, this is horrific,” moaned Simon Cowell during a break. “Something will turn up,” replied Amanda Holden. An hour later, it did. In the shape of a little middle-aged lady who strode purposefully on stage and introduced herself as “Susan Boyle from Blackburn in West Lothian.”

Simon asked: “OK, so what’s the dream?”

“To be a professional singer,” she replied, firmly. Cue much hilarity in the theatre.

“And who would you like to be as successful as?” “Elaine Paige.” Again, loud guffaws around the theatre. “What are you going to sing?” “I Dreamed A Dream from Les Miserables.” I burst out laughing. The rest, of course, is the stuff of legend.

We judges, and the sceptical audience, had committed the oldest sin in the talent show bible - judging a book by its cover.

It was one of the most surprising things I’ve ever witnessed, for sexist, ageist, fashionist reasons, It was also one of the most inspiring. In that 90 seconds, Susan Boyle offered up a wonderful, one-woman antidote to all the cynicism that had engulfed the world during this devastating recession.

She wasn’t a greedy banker or a corrupt politician. She wasn’t in this for fame or fortune, either. Susan has no interest in being another D-list celebrity or racking up piles of cash.

She had spent her life dreaming of one thing - being a professional singer.

 

Yes, the pressure got to her.

But she was insensitively dubbed “Hairy Angel”, mocked relentlessly for her looks and ridiculed for never being kissed. With every gratuitous insult, so her self-confidence diminished. By the time she got to the Britain’s Got Talent live finals Susan was mentally, physically and emotionally exhausted.

So much so that I made a public plea for everyone to “back off” after her threat to leave the show.

I spoke to her at length on the phone. “I was sick last night and I can’t sleep,” she said. “I wish they’d just leave me alone.” “That’s not going to happen Susan.

“You entered this show to be a professional singer, and anyone who does that has to accept that everyone will be interested in their story if they do well.

“There’s only one way to shut the critics up, absolutely nail it in the final. Kill them with your talent.” A pause. “I’d better show them all then!” On the day of the final I was still worried for her. “You going to be OK tonight?” She didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”

Susan walked to the stage and unleashed a magnificent new version of I Dreamed A Dream. She nailed it. Diversity’s victory left her flattened from a mixture of relief, exhaustion, and terror that this might mean the end of her dream.

The next day I was asked to call Susan because she was “very tired and upset”. She admitted: “I need to get away from all this for a while. Will I still be able to have a career as a singer?” I sensed the panic in her voice. “Of course you will,” I replied, truthfully. “Are you glad you came on the show?” I asked. “I am,” she said. “Even the way I feel now, I am.”

One of the more amusing aspects of my own relationship with Susan has been our mutual flirtation in various parts of the globe.

It began soon after her first audition was aired in April, and Boylemania erupted in Britain.

The front pages of the following Sunday’s newspapers followed a familiar theme - Susan, who’d confessed on the show that she’d never been kissed - fancied me. More importantly, she fancied me more than she fancied Simon.

Susan cemented this thought process when she heard she’d won the public vote in her BGT semi-final, dancing wildly on stage, wiggling her hips, and shouting: “This is for you, Piersy baby!” A few minutes later I was walking back to my dressing room when she spied me, ran down some steps, jumped into my arms and planted a big smacker on my lips. “I’ve been kissed now, haven’t I, Piersy baby!” she laughed.

Recently she revealed why she entered BGT in the first place. “After my mother died there was silence in the house for a few weeks. Then I began to listen to the radio again, and came across Britain’s Got Talent on the TV and the wee boy called Piers Morgan.

“I thought, ‘Hmm, nice. I like him’. I used to put the show on to see him, then I began to wonder what would happen if I wrote off for an audition.”

So there we have it. It’s all down to me!

And given that Simon Cowell will be making millions from her over the next few years, I can’t wait to see my cut of the profits - though I suspect it will involve a lot of noughts with no other number in front of them.

Unique

Susan Boyle is a phenomenon, a one-woman tidal wave of hope and inspiration who makes you feel just a little bit better about life.

What makes her so special? She’s an individual. Just look at her album, crammed with tracks you wouldn’t expect her to sing. Wild Horses anyone? But Cowell insisted Susan chose her own music.

So it is her record. Her unique voice.

To the cynics, I say bah humbug. The Susan Boyle story is not a modern-day parable of reality TV disaster. An innocent victim, her life ruined by transient fame.

It’s the story of how one woman from a Scottish village set the whole world alight with the sheer force of her personality and raw, undiscovered talent.

Without Britain’s Got Talent, Susan Boyle would have probably carried on living alone with her cat, never knowing if she had what it takes to be a star.

Now she knows the answer. And so, judging by the incredible sales of her album, which has gone straight to the top of the charts, does the entire world.
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