Susan Boyle profile

Sunday Times:

One moment Susan Boyle was “just another 47-year-old Scottish virgin”, reported the Los Angeles Times. Then came her “stunning weekend musical debut”, recounted AFP, the French news agency. Days later she was an “international singing sensation” with more than 25m hits on YouTube, the video-sharing site, announced the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Now everyone wants a piece of the “dowdy singing spinster” from West Lothian, who dumbfounded the judges and wowed the audience of ITV’s Britain’s Got Talent with her stirring rendition of I Dreamed a Dream from Les Misérables. Hollywood agents and chat show bookers are beating a path to her door.

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In person she is polite and friendly, with a hint of shyness when asked to elaborate on her onscreen confession that she had never had a boyfriend or been kissed: “Oh, I was just joking around. It was just banter and it has been blown out of all proportion. All I wanted to say is that I am single at the moment but I keep waiting. I am not on the hunt. I am happy as I am.” She was saying no more: “It’s personal.”

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Tearfulness became the order of the day. “What are we all crying about?” Letty Cottin Pogrebin, the author, mused on The Huffing-ton Post blog site. “What is it about this woman that touches us so deeply?”

Partly, Pogrebin reasoned, it was “the age thing”; a women of nearly 50 who “had the courage to compete with the kids – and blew them out of the water”. People were also “weeping for the years of wasted talent, the career that wasn’t, the time lost”.

In Britain, stung by Boyle’s remark that people shouldn’t judge others by appearance, the mood was one of self-mortification. It was not Boyle who was ugly “so much as our reaction to her”, Tanya Gold wrote in The Guardian.

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Boyle had given over much of her adult life to being a full-time carer for her ailing mother, relinquishing her last paid job as a community worker. Bridget encouraged her to take part in singing club competitions across West Lothian, for which she won numerous trophies. Boyle also sang karaoke in the local bars.

After Bridget’s death, aged 91, two years ago, her daughter did not feel like singing any more. But when she heard about the regional auditions for Britain’s Got Talent she recalled her mother’s advice and decided to start enjoying life again: “She was the one who said I should enter Britain’s Got Talent. We used to watch it together. She thought I would win.”

People have been “very kind” in their praise, but she acknowledged that she has much to learn about being a diva: “This is all very new to me. I went to bed one night and woke up in the morning to a group of about 30 children outside chanting my name.”

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The Sunday Telegraph says that Boyle has been kissed, but it was one to comfort her after her Mum's death.

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Mr Smith, 51, who has known her for 30 years, told the Daily Mirror: "It's not true Susan's never been kissed.

"I've given her many a peck on the cheek to say 'Don't worry, everything's going to be all right'.

"She comes to me when she needs help or a shoulder to cry on. She's been through difficult and very low times in the past few years.

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I don't think a kiss on the cheek was what she had in mind. She appears to deserve the outpouring of sentiment for her. I hope she wins.