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Susan Boyle: This Season's Latest Craze
We're at it again. Just three months after the death of reality TV star Jade Goody and we are on our way to destroying yet another celebrity. This time, we have picked a 47 year old Scottish virgin who looks like crap but has the voice of an angel.
It all started on 11 April 2009 when a lowly, shy, hairy and timid lady stepped out onto the Britain's Got Talent stage in front of judges Cowell, Morgan and Holden. What happened next surprised us all.
After telling the nation that she was 47 and 'that's just one side of me', Boyle launched into an almost perfect rendition of I Dreamed A Dream from Les Miserables. The crowd went wild. Holden was open-mouthed in amazement, Morgan was gob-smacked and applauding whilst Cowell wore a wry smile and had dollar symbols in his eyes. You could almost hear his inner self thinking; 'there's gold in them thar hills'.
This ugly lady sure could sing. She wasn't anything to look at, but she the perfect story to warm our hearts. Single? check. Old? check. Virgin? check. Lives on her own with just a cat? check. Now, we all know what happens next...
Us Brits love a good underdog. We love to see a nobody rise to stardom overnight just so that we can we laugh and point when they fail three weeks later. How awful we are. How dreadfully schadenfreude.
And that's exactly what happened next. Boyle became an instant internet sensation clocking up more hits on YouTube than The Sneezing Baby Panda and the legendary Daft Hands put together.
Then came the press, the paps and every other Tom, Dick and Harry who thought they could make a quick buck out of the ageing virgin. It was all sweetness to begin with, and we all loved her so dearly. The Sun (naturally) was one of the main contributors running stories likening Boyle to Jesus, telling us of her latest hair style, and how she purchased a new fence for a back garden.
Then came the bloggers. West End theatre break company, Show and Stay ran a number of blogs entitled Boylewatch, also with the intention of telling us what the star has been up to. Boyle received support from celebrities including Demi Moore, Graham Norton and Oprah and even made it into an episode of South Park.
For a short few months, Susan Boyle was on top of the world - nothing, it seemed could get in her way. And nothing could stop her from winning Britain's number on talent show.
So where did it all go wrong? The first suggestion that something was awry came when Lily Allen slammed the Scot as being 'over-rated'.
Then came Jamie Pugh - Boyle's nemesis. Pugh too could sing. Pugh also had a heart wrenching story to capture the nation's hearts. And Pugh also had a back catalogue of Les Mis songs to sing. White van man by day, pizza delivery boy by night; this soft spoken Welsh gem was the first real challenger to Boyle's crown.
More and more talented acts came to the BGT stage and before long, we were forgetting about dreaming dreams. We weren't interested in Boyle's eyebrows and we certainly didn't care about what coloured shoes she was wearing that day.
Now renamed SuBo, the singleton was beginning to loose it. And not just the competition. Four lettered rants were becoming the norm as Boyle lashed out at those who laughed at her and at those who supported Diversity over herself.
Soon enough, all reports in the paper had changed from how wonderful she was to how ridiculous she was becoming, and how she was loosing the plot.
Sara Nathan, TV Editor for The Sun got it spot on when she said SuBo's 'dream' was turning into 'a bit of a nightmare' before going on to (partially) accept some of the blame. 'To be fair, millions of us heaped the pressure on her after watching her first audition'. And she's right. How does anybody deal with that amount of pressure and that level of publicity without going a little loopy?
All this publicity is great for ratings though. 19 million people tuned to watch her meltdown on Saturday night - the highest figure ever to have watched the show.
The latest news headlines tell us that Boyle has been taken to the Priory in Southgate, London, suffering from exhaustion after loosing out in the final of Britain's Got Talent. All that coverage, all that publicity and she didn't even win. That's got to be enough to send anyone mad.
But do you know what? We may have actually learned our lesson this time. Ofcom received enough complaints from the public about how ITV allowed this clearly unstable lady to continue with the show.
Section eight of the broadcasting code states that 'People in a state of distress should not be put under pressure to take part in a programme or provide interviews unless it is warranted.'
Could this be the last time we see a star destroyed on national TV? You must be joking. Big Brother starts again in June, and the freak show can start all over again.
About the Author Samantha is an expert Research and family breaks consultant. She is currently writing for Show and Stay and is very excited about the upcoming British summer
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