As the first few notes of my song played, I scanned the crowd in front of me. Thousands of people filled the theatre, their faces skeptical, their minds already made up. I could almost hear their thoughts: “Just look at her! Who does she think she is? A singer? She cannae sing!”
They didn’t see a star. They saw a joke. But I opened my mouth and sang: “I dreamed a dream in time gone by…” And in that moment, the room fell silent. The mockery evaporated. My voice filled the space, and I watched doubt melt into awe.
But that stage wasn’t my beginning. It started in a pram in 1961, swaying to my mum’s records. Or maybe with the toy banjo she bought me, as I mimicked Paul McCartney on TV. I was the ninth child in a hardworking Catholic family in Blackburn, near Edinburgh. My mum was 45 when she had me, despite doctors urging her to terminate the pregnancy. I was born by emergency C-section, starved of oxygen. The doctors warned I might have brain damage.
“She’ll never be anything,” they said.
But they didn’t know Susan Boyle.
I was diagnosed as hyperactive and struggled with learning. I had trouble expressing thoughts, but I had music. At school, I was chosen to sing a solo. Nerves trembled through me until I sang “Child in the Manger”. Then, silence… then applause. That’s when I knew I had something.
Music became my escape. I didn’t look the part. I wasn’t glamorous. But I had a voice. After school, I worked briefly, then the unemployment crisis hit. Depression followed. I cried. I couldn’t sing. I volunteered at hospitals and studied social work. Slowly, I found confidence. One night, I sneaked into the Happy Valley pub and sang “I Don’t Know How to Love Him.” The pub froze. Then they cheered. I had found my audience.
I auditioned for Opportunity Knocks. I failed. Tried My Kind of People. Failed again. But I kept singing, kept dreaming. I took lessons from Fred O’Neil, expanded my repertoire, and even won £1000 in a competition. My mum got a pink twinset and a gold clock.
My father passed in 1999. My mother followed in 2007. I was alone with my cat Pebbles, heartbroken and lost. But I heard my mother’s voice: “Get off your backside, Susan. Do something with your life.”
So in 2009, I took a deep breath and boarded six wrong buses to get to my Britain’s Got Talent audition. I wore a gold dress, black tights, and white shoes (a crime against fashion, I know). I was 47, awkward, and unknown. But I sang “I Dreamed a Dream” and shocked the world. Standing ovation. Viral video. Headlines. Hope.
The journey wasn’t smooth. The semifinals were shaky. The media turned cruel. I almost quit. But Piers Morgan called and said, “Don’t let them win. Go back. Show them.”
In the final, I sang with tears, nerves, and everything I had left. I didn’t win – Diversity did – but I walked off with the world at my feet.
Since then, I’ve toured arenas, sold nine million albums, and stood beside my idol, Elaine Paige. I sang Cry Me A River, Amazing Grace, You’ll See. I traveled the world. Japan, France, America. And I finally bought a new house in Blackburn. Safe. Mine.
I still laugh thinking about Spanx and satin dresses that needed a team to zip up. I think about John, the boy I loved for seven sweet weeks. And I remember Lourdes with my mother, feeling peace in a sacred cave, the holy water drying on my skin.
This life? It’s more than I ever dreamed. I may have started as a “wee lassie” with nothing but a toy banjo and a stubborn streak, but I proved the world wrong. My story is for anyone who’s ever been told, “You can’t.”
Because you can. You absolutely can.
