Boyle’s life less ordinary
Susan Boyle’s life has changed a lot since becoming an overnight superstar, so why has she chosen to move back into the home where she grew up? reports.
Dressed in her Sunday best one morning in 2009, Susan Boyle caught the bus from her little Scottish village of Blackburn, and headed to Glasgow to audition for Britain’s Got Talent.
Until then her singing voice hadn’t reached much further than the local Catholic church.
She sat in the holding area eating a sandwich offered to her by a fellow contestant. She didn’t know she was being filmed.
Later, the then 47-year-old would reveal to cameras that she had ‘‘never been married, never been kissed’’.
Boyle was told it was time for her to go on. ‘‘Oh well, I’ll have a wee laugh,’’ she thought to herself, ‘‘I may as well enjoy it.’’
She stepped on the stage, Simon Cowell asked who she was, ‘‘And the rest of the story, well, you know,’’ Boyle tells me in her cheery, thick Scottish accent on the phone.
When the 55-year-old looks back on that audition clip, she feels she has undergone a big learning curve.
‘‘I’ve achieved a lot and really grown up a bit. Learned to take things more in my stride, and learned a lot of patience, you need a lot of patience in this industry and with the public.’’
Boyle’s not wrong about her achievements.
Within eight months of her television debut, she would release her first album, hold the record for the fastest-selling album by a female in the UK, and become the oldest artist to reach No 1 with a debut album in the US and UK.
But speculation ran rife in 2015, when Boyle broke her yearly tradition of releasing an album just in time for Christmas. Boyle said that it was out of her control.
‘‘But I’ve had time to reflect, time to grow up, and my confidence has grown, I’m ready.
‘‘This album - A Wonderful World is kind of a comeback album, to say that Susan Boyle is back, bigger, and stronger than ever, and raring to go.’’
It features a range of heart warming covers such as Robbie Williams’ Angels, Like a Prayer, and a duet with Michael Bolton of Somewhere Out There.
But the song that holds the most personal significance is her virtual duet with Nat King Cole of When I Fall In Love.
‘‘That era, the 50s, belongs to my mum and dad,’’ Boyle says.
‘‘That song brought me back, I was nostalgic because my mum and dad used to dance to that record, it’s magical.’’ Boyle’s love of nostalgia runs deep. Having lived in London after Britain’s Got Talent, she has since moved into her late parents’ old house in Blackburn, albeit after a few renovations, because it is rich with memories.
Fame and fortune allowed her to purchase a ‘‘posh house’’ down the road, but she lets her niece stay there instead.
‘‘Blackburn’s where my roots are really, you have to be grounded, it keeps you focused and your feet on the ground.’’
It’s where Boyle will be spending Christmas with her friends and family without whom, she says, she could never have embarked on her music career.
As for that recurring topic in the British tabloids – Boyle’s love life – she says that she isn’t in love at the moment.
‘‘I was doing an American tour a few years back and there was a doctor who I went out on a date with.
‘‘It wasn’t love, but it was a friendship, you know, and we don’t keep in contact quite so much now, but it was a nice friendship while it lasted.’’
Boyle doesn’t catch the bus too often any more, she enjoys having very nice clothes, and has had to get used to people recognising her in the street.
But some of the biggest life changes have been in balancing life in the spotlight with the communication challenges that come with Asperger’s Syndrome, which she was diagnosed with in 2013.
During a lunch with her tour crew and The Daily Mail’s Jenny Johnstonin 2014, things seemed to go south when the singer swore and turned her chair in the opposite direction for no apparent reason, ‘‘like a toddler in a strop’’. Later that day, Boyle told Johnston that she had been learning strategies to cope, and liked to see herself as someone with a problem she could solve.
‘‘At the beginning I was told not to do certain things in public, like use bad language,’’ Boyle says by phone, referring to changes in her life.
‘‘I’ve also learned that you speak to people the way you want to be treated yourself, I found it hard to learn that at first, but I’m more at ease now, and more natural.
‘‘I’ve learned that I’ve a lot of people around me who care very deeply, are passionate about what I do, and passionate about music.’’
Despite enjoying the comforts of her home in Blackburn, Boyle says one of the best things about her new, extraordinary life is the travel. She has travelled to more than 30 countries, having previously only visited France twice.
‘‘I do love travelling, and I’d love to visit New Zealand. Maybe one day: you never know, baby steps.’’
'This album - A Wonderful World - is kind of a comeback album, to say that Susan Boyle is back, bigger, and stronger than ever, and raring to go.' Susan Boyle