From The London Times
Susan Boyle: ‘The odds are against a real long-term career’
After coming second in Britain’s Got Talent, Susan Boyle was admitted to the Priory clinic suffering from exhaustion. Will she still be able to pursue a career that could see her earning millions?
A few weeks ago, in Susan Boyle’s home town of Blackburn, West Lothian, I was one of the many, many journalists who came clodhopping down her quiet wee street to make her life a misery. I won’t lie, I felt fairly uncomfortable about it. I’d watched all of her interviews on YouTube and I’d noted the transition from the smiley, happy lady who chatted with the bloke from the West Lothian Courier and sat on the Scottish Television sofa to the shell-shocked, monosyllabic bag of nerves who, weeks later, was doing video links with Oprah Winfrey and David Letterman. Even so, the word on the street was that I’d got the wrong end of the stick. Videos aside, everybody said, she was still a happy lady, loving her new life and looking forward to the final. To my pronounced and unprofessional relief, I only ever saw her cat, anyway. Boyle herself was down at the shops.
“Her friends and family may have been very well meaning,” says Dr Pam Spurr, a behavioural expert, “but they will have had no idea of the things they should or shouldn’t have been saying to her. They could have been saying ‘You’re going to win, you’re going to win’. It becomes very one-sided. Win or it’s all lost. And she didn’t.”
Then again, for the past few months perhaps everybody has been a bit lost. Max Clifford, the publicist, doesn’t represent Susan Boyle but does represent Simon Cowell, her new Svengali. “This is an unique situation,” he says. “I have worked with the biggest stars in the world. Nobody has ever become world famous this instantly before. With Paul Potts (Britain’s Got Talent, 2007) it happened quickly but nothing like as quick as this. Total obscurity to world fame in seconds. Nobody knows how to handle this because it has never happened before. We’re all learning. Simon’s learning. None of us saw it coming.”
Boyle was admitted to the Priory Clinic in North London on Sunday, after an unspecified incident at the Crowne Plaza hotel, Central London. The police have confirmed that officers attended to help “doctors assessing a woman under the Mental Health Act”, and the London Ambulance Service said that its staff had been there, too. She is not thought to have been sectioned. All the same, by the end of yesterday it was considered unlikely that she would be taking part in the Britain’s Got Talent live tour, which starts on June 12, or that she would undertake a planned trip to the US. Pam Spurr is not surprised. “If she has had any sort of breakdown,” she says, “three weeks is not a very long time.”
By mid-afternoon, Talkback Thames (the producers of BGT) had admitted that contestants were not psychologically profiled before appearing on the show, and that this was a policy it was now reviewing. Reports were also suggesting that Ofcom was considering launching an inquiry into Britain’s Got Talent, after receiving a “large number” of complaints that Boyle was allowed to perform in the final at all. Speaking to The Times, Ofcom confirmed the complaints but denied the inquiry.
After visiting Blackburn last month, I spoke to Sara Lee, the publicist from Talkback Thames, who was handling Boyle’s media. I was surprised, I told her, that Susan was still in her house in Blackburn. Still nipping down to the shops, or into the Happy Valley pub for a pint of lemonade on her regular chair in the corner, for any passing hack to (almost) see. Lee says: “We’ve been led by what Susan wanted and she wanted to stay at home. If she’d wanted to go away to a hotel, then she would have done. And she did, for a couple of days. But she has always wanted to do what she wanted to do. ”
In the run-up to last weekend’s final, tabloids were reporting arguments and temper tantrums. “That was the first major sign of a problem,” Spurr says. “And if that was the first major sign that we all saw, then there must have been minor signs that the production company saw. Something like that doesn’t just come out of the blue. Either the people looking out for her were not qualified to determine that this was a serious sign, or they didn’t have anybody looking out for her. If they did have a system in place, then it was a massively flawed system. It was obvious that she was vulnerable from the first performance.”
“This is the modern equivalent of a freak show,” says Mark Borkowski, the publicist and author of The Fame Formula: How Hollywood’s Fixers, Fakers and Star Makers Created the Celebrity Industry. “I’m one of the few people who didn’t feel that she had much of a future. You can’t pluck somebody with those issues and fix them overnight. This has been a fantastic soap opera for the fame-makers, Syco [Simon Cowell’s record label] and Talkback TV. I’m not suggesting that they are cynical and deliberately looking to exploit, but they have got their eye on the buck. They’ve done very well out of Paul Potts and they want to see what they can make out of this. We are beginning to see more and more people who are casualties of the process. Jade Goody was over. She was resurrected by her illness.”
Jim Chancellor is the managing director of Fiction Records, and signed Elbow and Snow Patrol among others. “I’ve a real problem with those talent shows,” he says. “Her fame is based on the fact that she turned out to be something other than what she appears to be. It’s abhorrent, this idea of ‘let’s roll out a bunch of freaks and then gasp as we see how good they are’. People are being made to feel that it’s acceptable to build someone up and knock them down in the space of a few weeks. That’s not a part of the industry I want to work with. It all happened in a few weeks. It must have hit her like a ton of bricks.”
What next for Susan Boyle? Understandably, nobody will say. The Priory won’t even confirm whether she is there. “I will say this,” Max Clifford says, “she’s better today than she was yesterday. She’s somewhere quiet, she’s being looked after.”
What Boyle needs now, he says, is people from home. “People close to her, whom she has been close to for many years. People who are happy to be in that situation. As opposed to being on her own, isolated, surrounded by television and music executives. These are people who understand the machinations of the media but they don’t understand her. She comes from a different planet.”
Clifford says that he can’t see Boyle ever being able to live a quiet life again. “But I keep reminding people,” he says, “she put herself forward. She wanted to be on stage. Right up until last week, when the tabloids turned on her, she was loving the whole process. Simon sees the most important thing as her being happy and fulfilled, whether she is pursuing a career or not.”
If Boyle does manage to have a career after this, almost everybody agrees that it will be a lucrative one. Stuart Clarke, A&R editor at Music Week, agrees. “It may be short-lived but you can’t argue with the huge exposure she’s had globally,” he says. “She could sell a lot of albums and concert tickets — if she’s mentally fit she could be a very big earner. Looking at the examples of artists who have come out of reality shows; the odds are against a real long-term career. There will be another programme, another year.”
“When you need to buy time,” Borkowski says, “you shove someone in the Priory. They want this woman to be fit and are hoping she will come through the other side. If they get this right, she could make millions. But at what personal cost?”
Additional reporting Chloe Lambert
Susan Boyle: ‘The odds are against a real long-term career’
After coming second in Britain’s Got Talent, Susan Boyle was admitted to the Priory clinic suffering from exhaustion. Will she still be able to pursue a career that could see her earning millions?
A few weeks ago, in Susan Boyle’s home town of Blackburn, West Lothian, I was one of the many, many journalists who came clodhopping down her quiet wee street to make her life a misery. I won’t lie, I felt fairly uncomfortable about it. I’d watched all of her interviews on YouTube and I’d noted the transition from the smiley, happy lady who chatted with the bloke from the West Lothian Courier and sat on the Scottish Television sofa to the shell-shocked, monosyllabic bag of nerves who, weeks later, was doing video links with Oprah Winfrey and David Letterman. Even so, the word on the street was that I’d got the wrong end of the stick. Videos aside, everybody said, she was still a happy lady, loving her new life and looking forward to the final. To my pronounced and unprofessional relief, I only ever saw her cat, anyway. Boyle herself was down at the shops.
“Her friends and family may have been very well meaning,” says Dr Pam Spurr, a behavioural expert, “but they will have had no idea of the things they should or shouldn’t have been saying to her. They could have been saying ‘You’re going to win, you’re going to win’. It becomes very one-sided. Win or it’s all lost. And she didn’t.”
Then again, for the past few months perhaps everybody has been a bit lost. Max Clifford, the publicist, doesn’t represent Susan Boyle but does represent Simon Cowell, her new Svengali. “This is an unique situation,” he says. “I have worked with the biggest stars in the world. Nobody has ever become world famous this instantly before. With Paul Potts (Britain’s Got Talent, 2007) it happened quickly but nothing like as quick as this. Total obscurity to world fame in seconds. Nobody knows how to handle this because it has never happened before. We’re all learning. Simon’s learning. None of us saw it coming.”
Boyle was admitted to the Priory Clinic in North London on Sunday, after an unspecified incident at the Crowne Plaza hotel, Central London. The police have confirmed that officers attended to help “doctors assessing a woman under the Mental Health Act”, and the London Ambulance Service said that its staff had been there, too. She is not thought to have been sectioned. All the same, by the end of yesterday it was considered unlikely that she would be taking part in the Britain’s Got Talent live tour, which starts on June 12, or that she would undertake a planned trip to the US. Pam Spurr is not surprised. “If she has had any sort of breakdown,” she says, “three weeks is not a very long time.”
By mid-afternoon, Talkback Thames (the producers of BGT) had admitted that contestants were not psychologically profiled before appearing on the show, and that this was a policy it was now reviewing. Reports were also suggesting that Ofcom was considering launching an inquiry into Britain’s Got Talent, after receiving a “large number” of complaints that Boyle was allowed to perform in the final at all. Speaking to The Times, Ofcom confirmed the complaints but denied the inquiry.
After visiting Blackburn last month, I spoke to Sara Lee, the publicist from Talkback Thames, who was handling Boyle’s media. I was surprised, I told her, that Susan was still in her house in Blackburn. Still nipping down to the shops, or into the Happy Valley pub for a pint of lemonade on her regular chair in the corner, for any passing hack to (almost) see. Lee says: “We’ve been led by what Susan wanted and she wanted to stay at home. If she’d wanted to go away to a hotel, then she would have done. And she did, for a couple of days. But she has always wanted to do what she wanted to do. ”
In the run-up to last weekend’s final, tabloids were reporting arguments and temper tantrums. “That was the first major sign of a problem,” Spurr says. “And if that was the first major sign that we all saw, then there must have been minor signs that the production company saw. Something like that doesn’t just come out of the blue. Either the people looking out for her were not qualified to determine that this was a serious sign, or they didn’t have anybody looking out for her. If they did have a system in place, then it was a massively flawed system. It was obvious that she was vulnerable from the first performance.”
“This is the modern equivalent of a freak show,” says Mark Borkowski, the publicist and author of The Fame Formula: How Hollywood’s Fixers, Fakers and Star Makers Created the Celebrity Industry. “I’m one of the few people who didn’t feel that she had much of a future. You can’t pluck somebody with those issues and fix them overnight. This has been a fantastic soap opera for the fame-makers, Syco [Simon Cowell’s record label] and Talkback TV. I’m not suggesting that they are cynical and deliberately looking to exploit, but they have got their eye on the buck. They’ve done very well out of Paul Potts and they want to see what they can make out of this. We are beginning to see more and more people who are casualties of the process. Jade Goody was over. She was resurrected by her illness.”
Jim Chancellor is the managing director of Fiction Records, and signed Elbow and Snow Patrol among others. “I’ve a real problem with those talent shows,” he says. “Her fame is based on the fact that she turned out to be something other than what she appears to be. It’s abhorrent, this idea of ‘let’s roll out a bunch of freaks and then gasp as we see how good they are’. People are being made to feel that it’s acceptable to build someone up and knock them down in the space of a few weeks. That’s not a part of the industry I want to work with. It all happened in a few weeks. It must have hit her like a ton of bricks.”
What next for Susan Boyle? Understandably, nobody will say. The Priory won’t even confirm whether she is there. “I will say this,” Max Clifford says, “she’s better today than she was yesterday. She’s somewhere quiet, she’s being looked after.”
What Boyle needs now, he says, is people from home. “People close to her, whom she has been close to for many years. People who are happy to be in that situation. As opposed to being on her own, isolated, surrounded by television and music executives. These are people who understand the machinations of the media but they don’t understand her. She comes from a different planet.”
Clifford says that he can’t see Boyle ever being able to live a quiet life again. “But I keep reminding people,” he says, “she put herself forward. She wanted to be on stage. Right up until last week, when the tabloids turned on her, she was loving the whole process. Simon sees the most important thing as her being happy and fulfilled, whether she is pursuing a career or not.”
If Boyle does manage to have a career after this, almost everybody agrees that it will be a lucrative one. Stuart Clarke, A&R editor at Music Week, agrees. “It may be short-lived but you can’t argue with the huge exposure she’s had globally,” he says. “She could sell a lot of albums and concert tickets — if she’s mentally fit she could be a very big earner. Looking at the examples of artists who have come out of reality shows; the odds are against a real long-term career. There will be another programme, another year.”
“When you need to buy time,” Borkowski says, “you shove someone in the Priory. They want this woman to be fit and are hoping she will come through the other side. If they get this right, she could make millions. But at what personal cost?”
Additional reporting Chloe Lambert
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