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Susan Boyle Beaten Up

by | 17th, November 2009

susan-boyle16SUSAN Boyle Watch: In readiness for another chance to sing before Simon Cowell, this time on the X Factor, Susan Boyle tells of her mum, being beaten up and her bullying hell.

The Mirror’s front page screams: “I was beaten every day.”

By whom? Simon Cowell? Amanda Holden? JLS?

“TV sensation tells of her childhood nightmare.”

The Britain’s Got Talent star says she was lashed with a belt every day by brutal teachers and cruelly taunted by other kids. She said: “You’re looking at someone who would get the belt every day. ‘Will you Shut up, Susan!’ – whack!”

Bullying is bad, says Susan. Has she any advice?

For anybody who has that type of problem I’d tell them to see a teacher now – but I didn’t do it.

No time to pick over the narrative of Boyle’s school days. Over in the Sun, the bullying angle plays second violin to tales of Susan’s mum, who died. Both papers agree that Susan Boyle must be presented as a victim. There’s the sympathetic backs story, which we’ve all heard:

She explains: “I had promised my mum I would do something with my life just before she died – that I’d do something with my singing. So I applied for Britain’s Got Talent.”

There’s the tale of Susie Simple:

Susan, who has learning difficulties after briefly being starved of oxygen at birth, says her mother’s death in 2007 – eight years after that of her father Patrick, 80 – was “life-changing”.

The Susan Boyle story is stuck on loop. Although the Sun does note one chance in the record:

It was not until October last year that she felt strong enough to attempt her Britain’s Got Talent audition. When she did, judges Simon Cowell, Amanda Holden and Piers Morgan – sceptical when Susan ambled on stage in Glasgow – were blown away by her voice.

Sceptical? Surely the Sun means to say when they sneered, and Amanda Holden, who would go on to take the piss out of Boyle on a telly show, lost control of her eyebrows.

Susan Boyle the world’s most famous cat lady is a famous signer. But it’s not her singing that interests the tabloids. It’s her role as victim:

“I’m the wee wifey with the mop and the cat next door. I went from being an unknown, nobody bothering me on the streets, to all these headlines with things like ‘the hairy angel’.

Only she isn’t hairy. She isn’t an angel. Susan Boyle defied Amanda Holden fascism:

The minute we turn her into a glamour puss is when it’s spoiled. I won’t let Simon Cowell take her to his dentist and I certainly won’t let her near his hairdresser.”

Says Susan Boyle:

“I keep reading that I’ve had all this botox, teeth whitening, but I haven’t at all! I’ve been working hard and lost a bit of weight, which has been good for me.”

Susan Boyle looks good and is living the life. But the media story is of suffering. Anorak wonders when the story will shift and Boyle will be talked about for her music?

Probably about the time her contract with Simon Cowell Inc. runs out…



Posted: 17th, November 2009 | In: Celebrities Comments (3) | TrackBack | Permalink