It isn’t easy being Susan Boyle. The British singing phenomenon reveals that she was repeatedly beaten and bullied as a child. Boyle burst onto the world scene with a stunning performance on “Britain’s Got Talent” television show. But she has had her ups and downs since then. Her new album debuts Monday.
The singer says she’s ready for the onslaught of attention that is likely to greet her debut album, I Dreamed a Dream. The disc is one of the most pre-ordered of all time.
But there was a time where her life was miserable. “You’re looking at someone who would get the belt every day,” the 48-year-old star told the Daily Mirror in Britain.
The treatment was related to her learning disabilities. Her brain was deprived of oxygen at birth, making her slow to pick up things, which drew rebukes from teachers as well as classmates.
“I’m just a wee bit slower at picking things up than other people. So you get left behind in a system that just wants to rush on,” Boyle said. “That was what I felt was happening to me.”
“There was discipline for the sake of discipline back then,” Boyle told the paper. “But it’s all very different now. I think teachers are taught to understand children with learning disabilities a lot better.”
“There’s nothing worse than another person having power over you by bullying you and you not knowing how to get rid of that thing,” Boyle said.
She worked for years for her local church in the small town of Blackburn, West Lothian, before becoming an international sensation, and YouTube phenomenon. Not surprisingly, she had trouble handling the attention and fame.
“I went to L.A. and there were crowds waiting for us at the airport,” Boyle recalled. “It was quite something. Nothing a woman like me was used to. The hotel I was staying in, apparently Frank Sinatra used to take his women back there!
“And I dipped my toes in the same pool Grace Kelly has been in. This is a world I had never seen before and never dreamt that I would get to see.”
Boyle had a nervous breakdown toward the end of the competition during the show and shortly afterward landed in a London clinic suffering from exhaustion.
“I hadn’t slept properly for a week and I didn’t know what was wrong with me,” the singer said. “I was in there for three days and I’ve never felt so tired. But I look back on it now and it was a necessity. I wanted to get a rest, a break without all the cameras.
