Let this be a lesson about the dangers of fame. Or the dangers of Simon Cowell. Or the dangers of singing showtunes with a monobrow.
Susan Boyle has entered The Priory to be treated for the special kind of emotional exhaustion that you only develop when the public adores you, then suddenly ditches you for a backflipping toddler with a girl’s haircut.
It means we’ll never again see the Susan Boyle who we first fell for – you know, the heavily-edited Susan Boyle whose voice was deliberately obscured by applause to make her look better than she actually was. Sad.
Remember the first time you heard Susan Boyle sing on Britain’s Got Talent? Of course you do – for starters it was only about a month ago, and secondly you probably also wrote a broadsheet newspaper column about how she’d singlehandedly altered the parameters of beauty forever with her beautiful singing voice and weird Stig Of The Dump face.
What’s that? You didn’t write a broadsheet newspaper about Susan Boyle? Well you’re the only one.
For weeks we’ve heard again and again how Susan Boyle has made it possible for unassumingly pubey everyblobs like her to wrestle the mantle of celebrity away from the attractive, self-assured egomaniacs who traditionally hold that position. She’s proved that you don’t need good looks to become a worldwide sensation. She’s proved that you don’t need good looks to turn down meetings with heads of state.
And, after she failed to win Britain’s Got Talent on Saturday night, Susan Boyle proved that you don’t need good looks to become so overwhelmed by the crippling pressures of fame that you end up collapsing into a dizzying downward spiral of mental anguish that leads you to being admitted to The Priory in an ambulance. Because, after losing Britain’s Got Talent and then reportedly having a tantrum about it at the studio afterwards, that’s what happened to Susan Boyle yesterday. The Sun reports:
Paramedics helped the “spaced-out” star through the lobby and into an ambulance just after 6pm. The ambulance, tailed by a police car, then took her to the Priory in Southgate, North London. A source at the hotel said last night: “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. The staff were concerned – something wasn’t right.”
Sad as it is, this is hardly shocking news. Anyone who saw Susan Boyle perform on Saturday’s Britain’s Got Talent final must have known that something was up – the poor woman seemed utterly shell-shocked throughout, like Jack Nicholson at the end of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. The pressure had got to her. And now she’s gone and done a Britney.
Still, at least we can be thankful that Susan Boyle sought treatment while she was still in control of her own destiny and, more importantly, in control of her own knickers. Honestly, that really would have been too awful to bear.
Anyway, now that Susan Boyle’s in good hands, let’s ask ourselves what part of Britain’s Got Talent we enjoyed the most. Was it the part where the 10-year-old girl had a hysterical sobbing fit on live television because she forgot one word of a song and the crushing weight of expectation got to her? Was it the part where the 11-year-old boy had a hysterical sobbing fit on live television because a smug millionaire told him that he was rubbish at the thing he loves to do? Or was it the part where the hairy middle-aged woman was thrust into a situation that she wasn’t mentally prepared for with such violent force that she couldn’t cope and had to be taken to a clinic in an ambulance?
No, in retrospect it was probably DJ Talent. He was quite funny, wasn’t he?
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superlative says
That back-flipping thing is BOY?? That deserves an article in itself, I thought she was an ethnic minority Hermione Granger.
Marty says
The poor woman.
She was so confident in her audition, terrified in the semi’s, and almost a zombie at the final. It’s been obvious for a while.
They should have left her go home when she wanted to. The pressure was too much, and the horrible media caused this.
I hope they’re proud of themselves.
Karla says
LOL, great article, and I don’t know why but this part made me laugh “Remember the first time you heard Susan Boyle sing on Britain
Susan says
My heart goes out to MS. Boyle. A set up from the start!! Send Susan flying high and then make sure she crashes. Will she record or go on tour. Highly unlikely. Her month of fame is sadly over. Hopefully she will recover in tact. My best wishes to you Susan. You deserved better than this!!!
Lisao says
Susan will be back…she is too big a talent now.