HOW SUBO FOUND HER MOJO
It’s ten years since a frumpy, middle-aged Scotswoman defied all expectation to become the runner-up on Britain’s Got Talent. And despite the wealth and prestige, the thing that has pleased Susan Boyle most about her rise to fame is this: she has constantly obliged us all to think again.
‘Breaking down barriers, making people more aware... It’s part of my job to show what is possible,’ she says.
The main thing she has shown to be possible, she is delighted to say, is that people like her (she was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome in 2012) can thrive. ‘Since I did the show I’ve come across a lot of people with autism. I’ve managed to talk about it and get people to see it in a different way. It shouldn’t hold you back.’
A couple of years ago she revealed that, impatient with her condition when she was a girl, her dad used to hit her. He died long before she found fame, but she says there remains an unfillable hole in her life. ‘I’m proud about the conflict I survived,’ she says. ‘I had a lot with my dad. He died in 1998. I miss him. I think I should have been nicer to him.’
She should have been nicer to him? But it was he who hit her. ‘Aye, but that was a long time ago. When I sing, I get a kind of reminder of him.’
Boyle says that music gives voice to her emotions. ‘When I perform I get emotional. I’m a very emotional person,’ she says. ‘I like to think through music I’m touching people, I like to think I’m healing.’
She also insists there was nothing contrived about her debut performance. ‘When they saw me step out on stage, people thought I was going to be awful,’ she says. ‘I proved them wrong. I showed you should never judge a book by its cover.’
Some have remained uneasy about the nature of her relationship with Simon Cowell, who now controls much of her output. But Boyle says: ‘I don’t think I’ve been exploited... I’ve been lucky to have a fairminded boss.
‘I never signed terrible contracts. Believe me, I wouldn’t sign anything that was bad for me.
‘I think people with disability – and I don’t like to use that word about myself but others do – need to prove themselves all the more. I think that’s what I have done: shown what is possible.’