Search Results Archives: April 2009
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TV sensation Susan Boyle enjoys the spoils of global fame | a new fence
Susan Boyle was pushed to the front of the council waiting list to have her fence replaced Picture: PA
Published Date: 21 April 2009
SHE has taken the world by storm and become an internet phenomenon but so far success has brought little in the way of material reward for Scottish singer Susan Boyle. Until now.
The Britain’s Got Talent celebrity finally started to enjoy the spoils of fame yesterday, when West Lothian Council pushed her to the front of the waiting list to have the fence around her Blackburn home replaced.
The council admitted that it had given her priority due to fears that the shaky structure could not cope with the hundreds of well-wishers and media beating a path to her door since she performed I Had A Dream on the ITV talent show.
The local authority sent out a council worker to replace the fence and her gate before her next TV appearance.
The singer has lived her whole life in the four-bedroom house in Blackburn and the rusting fence and rickety gate in the garden had seen better days long before her new found popularity.
Council worker Steven Carroll, who was charged with the task, was offered a cup of tea by the woman herself while he carried out the work yesterday.
He spent more than four hours trimming back the hedge, pulling out the old green fence and putting a studier wooden one in its place.
The fencer, who has worked for the council for more than 15 years, laughed off the idea that Boyle was his most famous customer.
He said that his family were big fans of her: “They love her and watch the show. Everyone in Blackburn is enjoying watching her because everyone knows who she is.
“I knew straight away it was Susan’s house. I assume she knew I was coming because she has been out to say hello.”
Mr Carroll added the new fence would not give the star any more privacy as it would be the same height.
He said: “I’m going to trim the hedge back, pull out the old one and put a new wood fence in its place. It should be about the same height.”
Although she is currently West Lothian’s most famous export, the council insists she is not getting VIP treatment.
Instead, they claimed the fence was replaced as part of an ongoing fencing initiative.
But they did admit that because of the number of people going to the house it had been moved up the priority list.
A council spokesperson said: “There is currently an ongoing council-fencing programme being carried out in the area, and Ms Boyle’s council property is one of many that will be repaired in the coming weeks and months. Given the large number of people currently surrounding Ms Boyle’s council property, including many young people, we felt it necessary to quickly ensure her fence was safe and secure to withstand the hundreds of well-wishers who have been visiting her home.”
The 47-year-old has seen her career blossom over the past week, since she caught the nation’s imagination. Her local football club have said that they would be willing to stage a live concert at Almondvale Stadium in West Lothian to promote Boyle and help the cash-strapped club to raise much needed funds.
They have already placed a rare copy of her first song on a charity CD, Cry Me a River, recorded a decade ago on eBay.
It was also revealed yesterday that her decision to pay for her one and only recording session could be worth millions of pounds to her, as it means she owns the copyright to her 1999 renditions.
It has also been announced that Boyle has signed with Scots PR company Dada, who also carry out publicity for the BBC, Hugo Boss and Durex.
Susan Boyle – ‘This is recognition for one of life’s underdogs’
Published Date: 18 April 2009
AT a time when we desperately need something or someone to put the smiles back on our faces, Susan Boyle has done just that.
The rapid ascent of the 47-year-old unemployed church worker from Blackburn, West Lothian, to international fame has been truly astonishing.
Just over a week ago few of us had heard of Susan Boyle, even within the Lothians, never mind heard her sing.
Now she is an undisputed phenomenon. Set to be interviewed by the world’s most famous chat show host, Oprah Winfrey, she is tipped to take the US by storm, counts Hollywood stars among her admirers, and has around 200,000 fans signed up to her newly-created Facebook site. All that with just one song, which most of us have yet to hear her sing in its entirety.
Her transformation – in terms of profile as opposed to personal appearance – is testimony to the enormous social power of the internet today.
It is primarily the YouTube clip of her singing which has been viewed more than 20 million times, rather than her TV appearance, which has enabled her fame to spread so mindbogglingly fast.
The great irony is that the main reason Susan has earned such instant fame is that she is the complete antithesis of our celebrity culture. Sure she is a great singer, but so are many other would-be starlets. What sets Susan apart is both her unkempt appearance and her personality.
While so many so-called stars and their wannabes are obsessed with appearance, she does not appear to care in the slightest what she looks like. While they all too often tend towards arrogance and self-obsession, she is warm and self-effacing.
Her countless interviews also show her to be a feisty and witty woman, something her many friends in Blackburn will attest to.
Her inspiration, she says, comes from her late mother, for whom she was a carer for many years. “I wanted to make this a tribute to my mother, so it was something I wanted to do, so I had to get on with it. That’s where the courage came from, my mother.”
It would be wonderful to think this might be the first sign of a change in public attitudes, away from an empty, celebrity-obsessed culture towards something a little more substantial. Wonderful, but unrealistic.
We can though, like Susan, enjoy the moment for what it is, some long-overdue recognition for one of life’s underdogs.
Finally! An innocent superstar
The British singing sensation confessed, in an interview that aired Thursday on the TV show “Extra,” that she was just joking when she told judge Simon Cowell on the U.K. reality TV show, “Britain’s Got Talent,” that she had “never been kissed.”
“It was meant as a joke,” she told Terri Seymour, a reporter for “Extra” and Cowell’s ex-girlfriend. “I’ve got a wicked sense of humor, you know!”
She’s been dubbed the “hairy angel” by the British press for her frizzy brown hair and bushy eyebrows — seems more well-groomed these days, though she told Seymour, “I wouldn’t like to change anything. I’m perfect the way I am.”
On Wednesday, Susan was photographed wearing a leather-like jacket over a bright patterned dress and faux beads, having updated from the beige, lace, prom-inspired dress she wore for her audition on the show.
The next day, Britain’s Daily Mail ran a picture of Susan with noticeably thinner eyebrows under the headline, “No Longer a Hairy Angel.”
As more details of her life in the tiny Scottish village of Blackburn emerge, some are starting to question just how innocent Susan is. But her singing inspiration, British theater legend Elaine Page, believes Susan is just as humble as she seems.
“She’s a country girl, and I think she just has the most lovely, natural voice,” Page said on “Good Morning America.” “She’s very open in her performance … in such gloomy times that we’re all sort of living through at the moment, economically speaking, she was a breath of fresh air.”
And villager Jackie Ruffel told ABCNews.com, “She’s definitely the real deal, sweet innocent Susan.”
Susan told the “Britain’s Got Talent” presenters that she was single and living with her cat Pebbles.
“I’ve never had a boyfriend,” she said. “I’ve never even been kissed.”
The most “GMA” could get from Susan in an interview last week was “no comment” on the subject of romance.
Ruffel said any talk of Susan being disingenuous is the media much ado about nothing.
Now O’Neil, her voice coach, has expressed concern that the world is taunting her with nicknames like “hairy angel.”
“I look at the names people are calling her and I think this is worse than what she is leaving behind,” he told British newspaper The Telegraph on Thursday. “This is not respecting someone, saying they have a voice like an angel and then calling them names.”
He’s also worried that the “Britain’s got talent” media machine will change “the real person” he knew and distract her from nurturing her talent.
“It is a very good instrument, but I am concerned about her being surrounded by all these PR people that she will not be given the time to sing,” he told the newspaper.
But Ruffel said the attention hasn’t changed her friend at all.
“She’s still Susan,” she said. “She was in here the other day, and we were saying to her, ‘Finally you made it.’ And she said, ‘I don’t know what all the attention is about, I just wanted to sing.”
“You won’t change Susan,” added Ruffel. “We have a saying here: You can take the girl out of Blackburn, but you can’t take Blackburn out of the girl. She’ll stay the same with her feet firmly on the ground, a sensible girl.”