It Is Not What It Seems
The audience laughed in secondhand embarrassment as Susan Boyle confidently walked out onto the stage of Britain’s Got Talent wearing a modest dress and with her hair uncontrolled. The judge Simon Cowell greeted the contestant by asking, “What’s your name, darling?” Susan Boyle responded, “Hello, my name is Susan Boyle, and that’s just one side of me,” adding with a wink and a hip roll that she is 47 years old.
Nobody was prepared for what happened after that. Boyle delivered a stirring performance of “I Dreamed a Dream” from Les Misérables, which took the audience (and the world) by storm in spite of the subtle judgment and laughs that were directed toward him. Her audition video, which she promptly uploaded to YouTube, quickly gained millions of views in a short amount of time. Boyle shared her experience with The Sunday Times shortly after her audition, saying, “I saw people laughing and I knew they were laughing at me.” “On the other hand, I reasoned that once they heard me sing, they would be silenced. They actually did it.” She was quickly advanced to the next round of the competition after receiving a resounding “yes” from all three judges, as well as a standing ovation from the audience. As of the time this article was written, Boyle’s audition video for Britain’s Got Talent had received more than 245 million views on YouTube.