Entertainment

Susan Boyle on getting 'racy', Donny Osmond and her bus trip to stardom


The first time Susan Boyle performed at Glasgow’s Armadillo, she arrived on the bus. Late. Worried that she had blown her big chance.

Now, more than 10 years later, the superstar from Blackburn, West Lothian, gets driven to the stage door in a silver 4×4.

The 58-year-old is looking forward to performing again where it all began in August 2008, at her audition for Britain’s Got Talent.

Susan Boyle celebrates the tenth anniversary of her appearance on Britain’s got Talent

Susan recalled the day of the performance that changed her life: “At 6.30am, I was getting dressed.

“What the heck was that dress I had on? That’s the one thing I regret, the dress, the tights and the white shoes. I would have liked to have been a bit more dressed.”

She left her home and headed to Glasgow by public transport.

Susan added: “It took me two or three buses just to get there. I was called for 9.30am. By the time I got there it was the back of 10.”

Susan worried that she was too late to show Simon Cowell and the rest of the judges what she was made of.

But the staff took pity on her and gave her a later slot.

“They said just to wait. I did think I’d missed my chance but they were good to me,” she said.

Susan Boyle almost missed her Britain’s Got Talent audition after running late

Her performance that morning, singing I Dreamed A Dream from Les Miserables, has gone down in TV history.

It was broadcast on April 11, 2009, watched by a live audience of 10million.

It was an instant sensation.

The clip has now been viewed on YouTube more than 300million times.

Susan recalls that when she stepped off the stage, she knew it had gone well.

“The reaction of the audience spoke for itself,” she said.

“I was shocked but I was pleased.”

Susan Boyle in rehearsals for her Ten tour which will head to 15 cities

On the night it was broadcast, the local children soon let her know that they approved.

“All I heard was knock, knock, knock on the door – all these weans were roaring,” she said. “I knew I must have done something right.”

It’s a different Susan who is now getting ready to return to the Armadillo stage with her own show.

The cream lace dress is hanging in the back of the wardrobe as a reminder of her old self.

She has lost so much weight that it’s now several sizes too big for her.

The live show, promoting last year’s album Ten, will show the audience a racier side to Susan.

She’s been working with a dance teacher to add some moves to the mix.

She said: “The fans will see something different, a bit more dancing, some shorter skirts as well. So there will be a bit more leg.”

Her fears back at the beginning, that she would be a one-hit wonder, have come to nothing.

Susan Boyle singing with music legend Donny Osmond

She said: “Simon’s been a man of his word, he kept his promise about me making an album and having longevity. I don’t need to worry any more.”

Susan is now worth £22million.

She still lives in the former council house where she grew up – although she also owns the property next door, and a bigger house nearby.

But she has modest tastes.

She claims that the most expensive thing she has bought is a bike. “It cost an arm and a leg. And I still can’t go it without stabilisers,” she said.

Susan Boyle shows OK magazine round her Bathgate home

Susan is learning to drive and fancies cutting about the back roads of West Lothian in a silver Jaguar convertible.

She’s bought a piano and is taking lessons.

She would like to write her own music and play on stage but struggles to fit the legwork into her schedule.

“I’ll be in my 70s by that time,” she said. “I haven’t had a chance to practise.”

Life since that fateful audition has been, she says, “a roller-coaster”.

She said: “I met the Pope last year, that was an unforgettable moment. I sang for the Queen, I sang with Donny Osmond.”

Susan Boyle meeting Pope Francis at the Vatican before she performed in the Vatican’s annual Christmas Concert

Low points included getting her lines wrong on stage.

She copes with fame by having “a different persona, becoming a different Susan”.

She added: “There’s a persona that you put on for the public. When I’m at home, the door closes, the frock’s not on any more.

“I was ready for it when it happened in my 40s. If I’d been any younger I wouldn’t have been ready to handle it. Maturity brings with it wisdom.”

One thing she won’t do is leave Blackburn.

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She said: “I will work in the US but never live there.

“It’s not that I don’t like them but I’m a Scottish lassie.”





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