Susan Boyle

by John McShane

  Savage stuff from Ms Gold, but Carole Malone in the News of the World was hardly wearing kid gloves either when she wrote:

  ‘Won? Lost? It doesn’t actually matter. What matters is that Susan Boyle is on the road to hell. And I can’t be happy for what’s happened to her or what’s about to happen because I fear it’s going to destroy her. I’m terrified that it isn’t just her newfound career that’s going to fall apart – but her whole life as well.

  ‘Because everyone is still skirting around the problem. Experts are talking about her “psychological problems”, about her “fragile mental state”, about her “delusional attachment to Piers Morgan”.

  ‘No one is actually saying what the REAL problem is. But we all know don’t we? And now they’re claiming it’s the pressure of celebrity that’s got to her. It isn’t. It’s the pressure of her condition. It’s the pressure of being taken away from the small Scottish village where she was able to cope with life because it was simple and safe.

  ‘Susan was able to live THAT life because the people around her accepted her “eccentricities” and made allowances for her. And while she wasn’t always able to control her temper or her feelings, the locals looked after her because she was one of them.’

  And the columnist added: ‘And yes, we all got carried away watching life come good for this quirky, chubby, funny-looking little virgin from West Lothian who was always making funny faces, wiggling her hips and giggling that she’d never been kissed.

  ‘But we all knew, didn’t we? We could all see. Which is why we’re as much to blame for what’s happened to Susan Boyle as those TV bosses suddenly feigning horror at her mental state… And no, I don’t buy the excuse they were just giving her what she’d always wanted. I’m sorry but, with respect, Susan Boyle isn’t capable of knowing what she wants or what the world of celebrity has in store for her. And that’s not patronising, it’s just recognising who she is – something TV bosses surely would have done a long time ago had they not been blinded by £ signs… There WAS a window there where her story was all sweet and heart-warming and lovely, but it’s gone.

  ‘In its place is a fragile, mixed-up woman in crisis who’s sobbing and shouting and swearing because she doesn’t understand and can’t handle what’s happening to her. The truth is, we were all knocked sideways by Susan Boyle because as a society we’ve been conditioned not to expect anything from people like her… But what will become of her now? I expect she’ll do a few interviews in the States, maybe even make an album – but I expect that will be it.

  ‘And then what? Back to West Lothian where, thanks to BGT, she no longer belongs?’

  The broadcaster and writer Libby Purves raised some further, and disturbing, points in The Times: ‘On Saturday night the shy Scotswoman Susan Boyle sang her last song on the ITV show Britain’s Got Talent, and didn’t quite win. She was beaten by the street-dance group Diversity, and it was probably for the best… Maybe this time, the fame-dragon will be cheated of its human sacrifice, tamed and bridled and taught its place. Susan Boyle can continue to prosper in a lower wattage of spotlight. The most poignant moment of the evening came as she smilingly conceded to the dancers and – pressed for her feelings – looked out at the audience and said: “I’m among friends… am I not?” The last three words cut deep. Those who feed off the apparent love of audiences always hope that they are among friends. But deep down, they doubt it. And there is real danger in a storm of applause and attention: it can wash the soul away unless it is anchored by the solidity of family and friends, who do not clap or adore but merely hug and gently mock… Most will admit to tearful, lonely or drunken times in hotels and dressing-rooms where they wonder if anybody will ever want them again for themselves, not just their public shtick.

  ‘Overdoses of fame can be lethal: they often douse the creative spark and drive the artist into noisy self-parody and consequent self-hate. In a way, the new phenomenon of empty celebrity unbacked by original talent is less destructive: any amount of fame can’t do much harm to the oeuvre of Piers Morgan or Paris Hilton.’

  As if these scathing critiques were not merciless enough, they seemed tame compared to the Independent’s verdict:

  ‘A country that not only tolerates the celebrity of Simon Cowell and Piers Morgan but considers them as competent arbiters of aesthetic achievement has clearly lost its way. Of course it is part of the gag that these repulsive individuals constitute two-thirds of the judging panel, but it is not a gag that I find particularly amusing, or one that reflects at all well on those of you who endorse it.

  ‘The staggering success of Susan Boyle provides us with a neat encapsulation of all that has gone wrong with Britain. It is not her fault that she considers “I Dreamed A Dream” a suitable vehicle for her talents. Were she to stand up and belt it out at the end of the evening in her West Lothian local, The Happy Valley, it would actually be both hilarious and touching – and even I would raise a glass to her and give her a hand, for sheer brass neck if for nothing else – but for her to become an “international sensation”?

  ‘When did it become mandatory to give pap like this our wholehearted approval? It’s not a song; it’s an insult to the very idea of songwriting. “I Dreamed A Dream”, forsooth. What else are you going to do with a dream, genius? Yes, yes, I know the show is all about popular entertainment. But since when does “popular entertainment” become synonymous with rubbish? But these days it is cheap sentimentality that has triumphed, and all we have now is a culture that has become homogeneous, entirely bland. It’s not Susan Boyle’s fault. It’s ours.’

  The controversy about Susan Boyle’s treatment by both the television which had given her fame and the public’s fascination with her continued, but there was an even larger and more disturbing development ahead.

  CHAPTER TEN

  FAME & MISFORTUNES

  Now that Susan’s attempt to win Britain’s Got Talent had ended, that surely would be that for a while. The storm that had been raging around her would go away, the publicity would diminish, the world would not be quite so interested any more. She could ‘get her life back’.

  What else could happen? Surely there wasn’t anything that could eclipse the events of the previous seven weeks? Sadly there was.

  On Monday, 1 June, the world awoke to the headline ‘SuBo Taken to Priory’. Nothing more really needed to be said – although a lot more was going to be written – as that phrase said it all. ‘The Hairy Angel,’ ‘Rambo’, call her what you will, the woman who had enchanted the world and then caused it to examine its own motives for that fascination, was inside ‘the clinic of the stars’.

  The Priory group of hospitals was famous for its celebrity patients – Kate Moss, Ronnie Wood and Pete Doherty had all been treated by them – and now Susan was joining the list. The final and the week leading up to it, let alone the worldwide spotlight she had been in since the start of April, all came together in one terrible, seemingly inevitable, collision.

  The details of what happened to her don’t make pleasant reading. And although she was to later explain them away by saying she was tired, they were still very worrying.

  Show aides had contacted police to say she was acting strangely at her London hotel, the four-star Crowne Plaza in St James near Buckingham Palace, the Sunday after the contest. Paramedics arrived and helped the ‘spaced out’ star, who had been continually weeping that day, through the lobby and into an ambulance just after 6pm. At one stage she had apparently passed out in her room.

  A Metropolitan Police Inspector and a police doctor were called to assist. The ambulance, tailed by a police car, then took her to the Priory in Southgate, north London.

  A Scotland Yard spokeswoman said: ‘Police were called at approximately 6pm to a central London hotel to doctors assessing a woman under the Mental Health Act. The woman was taken voluntarily by ambulance to a clinic. At the request of doctors, police accompanied the ambulance.’

  Once she got there, reports said that she
asked, ‘Where’s Pebbles?’ and only calmed down when staff rang her home number so that she could leave a message for the cat. She was said to have been in a panic over her cat – which was being looked after by friends. One source said, ‘Susan was distraught and convinced they’d taken her cat. She was crying she hadn’t fed Pebbles and flapping her arms like a confused child. It was incredibly distressing. She was talking to herself then went quiet.’

  The Priory clinic describes itself as ‘a private hospital specialising in the treatment of mental health problems including addiction… For people suffering from mild to moderate mental health issues, such as stress and anxiety, the hospital provides a range of outpatient-based therapy services such as individual and group based Cognitive Behaviour Therapy. For those people requiring inpatient care for more severe psychiatric illness such as depression, psychotic illness or addiction, there are residential facilities for 52 patients. Priory has a highly experienced team of mental health professionals and support staff, which include consultant psychiatrists, psychologists, nurses and therapists.’

  ‘She’d been at the hotel for a few days, but since Saturday’s final had been acting strangely, causing a bit of a stir,’ an insider at the Crowne Plaza said. ‘The staff were concerned – something wasn’t right. When the paramedics and police arrived she agreed to go voluntarily. She didn’t make a fuss. The paramedics calmly took her out through the main lobby and into the waiting ambulance. It was all done very calmly. They didn’t want to stress or upset her. She didn’t look well – she looked lost, not all there.’

  A spokesman for Britain’s Got Talent said, ‘Following Saturday’s show, Susan is exhausted and emotionally drained.

  ‘She has been seen by her private GP, who supports her decision to take a few days out for rest and recovery. We offer her our ongoing support and wish her a speedy recovery.

  ‘It is a talent show at the end of the day and people are auditioning on their talent merits. There is no formal psychological testing at the beginning of the show. Compared with something like Big Brother, where you are looking at people going into a house for three months, the people on Britain’s Got Talent have three or four performances maximum and spend only seven to 10 days in a hotel for the semi-finals and final. It is a very different scenario.

  ‘But because of the level of media attention and the speed with which this has become a global phenomenon, we will be reviewing all of our policies in relation to psychological assessment.’

  Details began to emerge of Susan’s behaviour leading up to and after that final performance. A twisted section of the audience had booed her when Piers Morgan made her his tip to win and once she left the spotlight she had sunk into the arms of producers and buried her head in her hands before starting to cry. She had also allegedly uttered a four-letter outburst shortly before the show was due to start because her stage costume had not arrived.

  In fairness to Susan, such a delay would have sent many a more experienced performer into a rage. She was ushered into a room by production staff, but insiders said she could still be heard ‘swearing like a trooper’.

  After returning to her dressing room once the verdict had been given and Diversity were pronounced the winner, she was widely reported to have shouted backstage: ‘I hate this show. I hate it.’

  She was also said to have burst out of her dressing room and run along a corridor with only her bra on her top half, yelling abuse at production staff before throwing a cup of water over a floor manager. And sources said that she had been introducing production staff to ‘an invisible friend’ and borrowing mobile phones to leave messages for Pebbles.

  Irene Carter, the mother of one of the members of dance troupe Sugarfree from the contest, said, ‘Susan was acting very strange all week. One time staff working on the show backstage asked if she was okay and she said she was talking to her friend.

  ‘She then introduced everyone in the room to this “friend”, who wasn’t actually there. Another time she came up to my daughter Emma in the hotel and asked to borrow her mobile phone. She left this really bizarre message which went on for several minutes. When she got off the phone she said she had been talking to her cat back at home.

  ‘Susan said she had to call Pebbles several times throughout the day or she would miss her. I really think she was cracking up.’

  Leaving messages for her cat was bizarre enough but talking to an imaginary friend? What was that all about? Psychologist Dr Lesley Perman-Kerr said, ‘It seems that Susan Boyle was feeling very alone in a world she didn’t really understand or connect with, and I think she must have been using this imaginary friend as a kind of escape. She may have been a little delusional as well.

  ‘I think it’s probably quite different to how children normally use imaginary friends because they are very imaginative and can dream up imaginary friends as play partners. Also they can use them to say things they want to say but want someone else to blame it on. Children can have imaginary friends if they are very stressed, but it’s not anything similar to what she’s doing. I suspect she’s extremely stressed and simply unable to cope in the world she found herself in.’

  Psychologist Linda Papadopoulos said, ‘If Susan is feeling insecure, inventing an imaginary friend might be something she’d do.

  ‘Lots of people talk to themselves to comfort themselves and lots of children do it at some point in their lives. I’m guessing that she feels a need for comfort when she’s in a situation where she’s feeling very anxious.

  ‘When we’re stressed out, we go to tried and tested techniques to cope.’

  Professor Chris Thompson, director of healthcare services at The Priory, said the intense public scrutiny she had faced in previous weeks could have triggered anxiety and depression which would need months of therapy.

  ‘People are shocked to the core by the level of public scrutiny of them. Most of us go through life with very little feedback. When you start reading things about yourself you can start to think: “Is that who I really am?”’ He also said that if an exhausted person continued without treatment they could develop anxiety or depression.

  ‘It seems to me a bit like walking out on to a branch and then sawing it off behind you. The fact that Susan Boyle appears to have broken down in some way so close to the end of the series suggests there is a link. I would want to know that people being exposed to such pressures are given proper care.’

  Professor Thompson went on to say, ‘I cannot talk specifically about Susan Boyle, but any admission to a psychiatric hospital for a matter of days is, in my opinion, a failed admission, because either it was unnecessary in the first place or the job hasn’t been done fully.’

  He added, ‘I would want to know that people being exposed to such pressures are actually looked after. I think I know what TV companies would say – they would say “these people are willing volunteers”… The fact that there is consent between the TV company and contestant does not prevent the TV company having a duty of care once that consent has been given.’

  He stressed that the north London private clinic ‘is not a rest home and it’s not a spa. It is a psychiatric hospital.’

  Susan’s brother Gerry confirmed she was missing her home in West Lothian – and Pebbles. ‘She is a bit tired and maybe even a wee bit homesick,’ he revealed. ‘When I spoke to her yesterday she was asking about her cat. It’s going to take a wee while for her to get her head round all this because she just comes from a wee village in Blackburn.

  ‘First and foremost we have to make sure she is happy, and she is – she wouldn’t change all this for the world. It would be nice to get her back home for a couple of days. But she will bounce back – we know our Susan. She’s at the Priory talking to people there about how she feels and where she goes from here. She sounded a bit happier, she sounded a bit more like herself, but certainly a bit more rested.

  ‘She’s been on a tremendous roller-coaster. There’s been an enormous amount of media speculation and intense a
ctivity. She’s not used to that. She’s coming to terms with that now that she’s no longer an anonymous face.

  ‘I think what led up to it was the build-up to the show and just psyching herself up for that and then wondering after the show, “Where do I go now?”’

  Mr Boyle added, ‘This is the start of Susan’s international career, now that the talent show is finished. She is not interested in money, she’s not a material person, but what she is interested in is working with her idols and I’m sure Mr Cowell will have a few people lined up. I was absolutely delighted with the result on Saturday. In my opinion, it’s not about winning the competition, it’s about where your career goes afterwards.’

  The show’s production company Talkback Thames said, ‘We offer her our ongoing support and wish her a speedy recovery.’

  So did one of Susan’s compatriots. Fellow Scot, Prime Minister Gordon Brown, was being interviewed on television in the middle of the Priory drama, and he said, ‘I hope Susan Boyle is OK because she is a really, really nice person. I spoke to Simon Cowell last night and Piers Morgan and wanted to be sure that she was OK.’

  Piers Morgan, in fact, gave an insider’s view of the torment that Susan was going through. In an article he wrote for the Mail on Sunday seven days after Susan was admitted to the Priory, he described the events leading up to that admission.

  The day of the final he had asked her if she was okay on the telephone.

  “‘Not really,” she said. “I’ve not had a good night’s sleep all week, I haven’t been eating much, and I’m really stressed out.”

  “‘You’ve got your chance to show everyone what you can do tonight. This is it, Susan. This is your moment to have the last laugh.”