Susan Boyle loses UK show on a high note

Susan Boyle performs in the
finale of Britain's Got Talent.
(Photo: ITV)

YouTube sensation Susan Boyle lost "Britain's Got Talent," coming in second place after a dance troupe called "Diversity."

WTF?

"The best people won," Boyle said, according to a CNN report.

OK, so they're good...but...hello? It's nothing we haven't seen before a million times over here.

And maybe that's it. The British are not known for their spectacular Hip Hop routines, know what I mean?

Yet, word is the 48-year-old Scottish unemployed charity worker's alleged "four-letter tantrum" days before the finals influenced millions of viewers to switch their vote from Boyle to Diversity.

The 10 dancers, ranging in age from 12 to 25 years old, will get a $159,000 prize and the chance to perform before Queen Elizabeth II at the Royal Variety Show (whoopdeedoo).

For the finals, SuBo sang the song that made her an Internet sensation: "I Dreamed A Dream" from "Les Miserables" (big mistake...to give the audience more of the same). After the announcement, Boyle curtsied to the audience and gave them her signature hip shake, AP reported.

The dream, however, is not over. Boyle can sing. Boyle can really sing. And any producer with half a brain out there can see that.

Boyle became a favorite to win the competition after her audition on the show in April, when she first sang "I Dreamed A Dream." Her frumpy appearance drew condescending looks from the studio audience and the judges, but her soaring, evocative voice silenced the doubters and turned her into an Internet sensation.

Her first appearance has been viewed millions of times on YouTube, and it's the fifth-most watched clip in history on that website, AP reported. It was a moment that went down in reality show history.

During that performance, as Boyle hit a high note at the end of the song's first line, Cowell's

She has since appeared on TV shows and been the subject of numerous tabloid stories. She reportedly lost her cool this week during a confrontation with two reporters, and the police intervened, several news sources reported. Boyle reportedly contemplated pulling out of the competition to soothe her frazzled nerves.

The global fame and the "odd bit of negative press" in the past week have been too overwhelming for her, Piers Morgan, one of the show's three judges, told CNN's Larry King Live on Friday.

"She's just had a pretty rough week because I think the full enormity of what has happened to her is beginning to hit home," Morgan said. "Earlier this week, she had a lot of tears... At one stage, she was going to leave the show. So, fortunately, we've calmed everything down."

"I'm not going to throw away my big chance now," Boyle she said on the show's Web site.

Boyle was up against nine other contestants who participated in the finals Saturday, including Shaheen Jafargholi, a 12-year-old whose voice has been compared to Michael Jackson's; Hollie Steel, a 10-year-old who turned in a solid performance after a tearful semifinal meltdown, and a grandfather-grandaughter singing duo, AP reported.

There was also "Stavros Flatley," a father-son act who parodied "The Lord of the Dance" by romping around the stage shirtless, in blond wigs and leather pants, combining Greek dancing and Irish beats. Like Boyle, they received standing ovations from the judges, and Amanda Holden confessed that 40-year-old Demetrios Demetriou and his 13-year-old son Lagi were her favorite act, AP reported.

"I want you to win," she said. "I love you."

Cowell called their act "genius."

But it was Boyle whom millions of people tuned in to watch.

"You are one special lady," Cowell told her last week. "You really are."

Cowell was quoted as saying that Boyle could be the biggest star he's ever discovered. Word is Simon and SuBo will embark in a special relationship in which the music and TV entrepreneur will take her far from the U.K. to "conquer the U.S."

Media estimates place Boyle's earnings after the show at somewhere around $13 million (£8 million). On top of a multimillion dollar record deal and share of album sales, Boyle is also set to profit from a Hollywood movie of her rags-to-riches tale, a book deal, image rights, endorsements and TV appearances, The Sunday Mirror reported.

"They don't care in America whether she wins a British TV show--they care about the woman they saw singing on YouTube," a Cowell insider told the Sunday Mirror according to a CNN report. "If anything, £8 million in her first year might be an underestimate."

Good for her.

Source: The Associated Press, CNN, The Sunday Mirror
Copyright © 2009