Susan Boyle Read Free Page B

slipper at last. ‘I’m forty-eight . . . but it’s only a number, for goodness’ sake. It’s a bit like a cygnet to a swan. Now I seem a sophisticated lady. But even though the outwardness has changed, inside I’m still the same, but a bit more refined in some ways. I keep reading that I’ve had Botox, and my teeth whitening but I haven’t. I’ve just been working hard and lost a bit of weight.’
    With the release of Susan’s début album imminent, the publicity machine moved up a gear, and two very high-profile appearances were planned for her. The second was the aforementioned gig at the Rockefeller Center, but before that there would be a major appearance in the UK on Simon Cowell’s other brain-child, The X Factor , and many people felt that for Susan this was the biggest triumph of all.
    It was said that she thought her only chance of fame came from an appearance on Britain’s Got Talent , and not its counterpart, because The X Factor is more looks oriented. Susan felt that because of this she would never have got through the auditions. Now she was being asked to appear on X Factor not as a contestant, but as a performer, the latest in a line of extremely high-profile singers that included X Factor judge Cheryl Cole and Mariah Carey, who was a guest on the same night as Susan.
    The song she was due to perform in front of the crowd was ‘Wild Horses’. For most performers, this would involve a rush to the stylist, the salon and the gym, but here again Susan played it differently. She was spotted taking the 557 bus to nearby Bathgate where, surrounded by well-wishers, she posed for pictures and signed autographs. She then made her way to the local department store, M&Co, emerging an hour later with a bag full of new clothes. If she was turning into a diva, there were certainly no signs of it yet.
    Her undiva-like behaviour nearly led to a disaster, though, when Susan dyed her hair an unfortunate shade of red. She didn’t pay much heed to it until she arrived at the TV studios, but with only three hours to go before she was due to perform, emergency action was needed and a team of hairdressers was summoned to sort out the problem. A short while later, with her hair a more attractive darker shade of brown, Susan was ready to sing.
    Her performance wasn’t helped by the fact that she had developed a slight cough, and it was actually her second, utterly flawless take that ultimately made it to the screen. The audience didn’t care, though: Susan got a standing ovation before she had so much as sung a note and a rapturous reception afterwards. It was ‘bloody great’ to be back, she said, adding, ‘I feel great being back here, I feel at home and I loved performing. The public should watch out for the album.’
    Presiding over it all, of course, was the ubiquitous Simon Cowell. Cowell has become, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the most influential person in British showbiz circles - and increasingly in American ones, too - and this was his moment. ‘I feel so proud of you, and it’s lovely to have you here,’ he told Susan, but it was so much more than that. Without meaning to sound coy or cast aspersions, Simon was the fairy godmother here: it was he who had taken a shy little Scottish lady and transformed her into something quite different: a woman who was inspiring the world. In Susan he had picked the right person, for she had the talent to carry it off, but it was still Cowell who had facilitated her success and been the brains behind the most astonishing début the world had ever seen. This was Susan’s and Simon’s moment. Between the two of them, they were changing the face of musical history and redefining the limits of what could be achieved by whom. Shy little Susan had taken on the world, and with a little help from her friend Cowell, she had won.

Cinderella Sings
    Saturday, 11 April 2009. Britain was grouping around the nation’s television sets, hunkering down to watch one of the most