ITVThere's just one more day until Susan Boyle can justify her global celebrity—and live up to expectations as the bookmakers' favorite—by winning the finale of Britain's Got Talent. No pressure, though.
After a tension-filled week that saw the 48-year-old Scot—unflatteringly dubbed "Ramboyle" and the "Hairy Angel" by her pals in the British press—unleash an expletive-laced rant at reporters (and maybe a judge or two), reportedly threaten to quit the reality hit and be publicly defended by the otherwise caustic Piers Morgan, there's yet one more twist to Boyle's tale.
The church volunteer turned worldwide phenomenon has been placed in a safe house in advance of tomorrow's show.
"I want nothing more than to stay and sing in the Britain's Got Talent final," Boyle said yesterday. "I've spent weeks rehearsing—it's all I've been thinking about. I'm not going to throw away my big chance now."
Morgan confirmed that the "I Dream a Dream" songbird is currently holed up with one of her close friends at an unspecified location in London. She was previously put up by producers at the Wembley Plaza Hotel, but her outburst days ago, followed by a similar breach of decorum when police questioned her about the incident, led to the decision to transfer the front-runner to a more discreet locale.
The privacy comes in the wake of public concerns about the singer's pressure-cooked state of mind, evidenced by any number of headlines proclaiming she had gone "off the Boyle."
"Imagine, if you will, being anonymous for 47 years of your life, and then suddenly being propelled into genuine world superstardom," Morgan wrote in Boyle's defense on his blog this week. "The pressure from sudden global success can be enormous.
"Then imagine, too, having all this go on when you are days away from the final of a competition that can make or break your career and your life. A competition that everyone expects you to win, a fact that in itself piles on even more pressure."
Morgan went on to say that Boyle had found it "very, very difficult to cope" with her sudden acclaim and had even "been in tears many times during the last few days, and even, fleetingly, felt like quitting the show altogether at one point and fleeing all the attention.
"I am calling today for everyone to just give her a break."
No doubt adding to her mounting pressure is fellow singing prodigy Shaheen Jafargholi, a 12-year-old Welsh boy who is Boyle's biggest threat going into the competition and whose odds to win the show have increased with every one of Boyle's outbursts.
Morgan himself praised Jafargholi after his Jennifer Hudson-channeling semifinal performance Tuesday, saying it was "the best singing performance we have heard in the semifinals so far." Boyle's semifinal performance of "Memory" had taken place just two days earlier.
Last week, the ever-prescient Simon Cowell even declared on the show that the final would not be "the one-horse race you are going to think it is."
The winner of Britain's Got Talent will be revealed Saturday.
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