Susan Boyle’s voice drifts calmly over the phone from London.
“I can talk for as long as you want me,” she says, in a motherly tone. And you can almost hear her smile. “I am so excited to come [to the UAE]. I have never been there before. And it will be a whole new experience for me. I want to see a bit of the place. I want to do a bit of shopping.”
She sounds confident, at ease and practiced – like she’s been doing this for a very long time.
“I like the culture. I like the people,” she adds of her upcoming performance at the Zayed Cricket Stadium in Abu Dhabi on December 13. All charisma, all charm.
But it’s only been four years since a 48-year-old Boyle walked on to that Britain’s Got Talent stage and became a global internet sensation. She’s since recorded five albums, have been nominated for a Grammy twice, sold 19 million albums and travelled around the world to perform. She’s also made a lot of money in the process. And yes, had a few good old celebrity meltdowns.
“I’m a bit like a pressure cooker,” she chortles in that signature Susan Boyle laugh, suddenly perking up when discussing the effects fame has had on her life. “But I’ve learned to keep it under control. I don’t blow up too much now.”
She might have had to learn a lot quickly, but Boyle has always known herself to be quite a fighter – although it’s only now she’s come to recognise herself as such.
“I’ve been very lucky, yes. But I’m still in the process of learning. I guess that’s what makes it more interesting.”
The youngest of nine children, Boyle was starved of oxygen at birth and suffered brain damage, which later led to learning disabilities. As a result, she was picked on at school, bullied on a daily basis and eventually led her to become a recluse.
In the 2011 documentary for English broadcaster ITV called Susan Boyle: An Unlikely Superstar, she recounted how she eventually fought back.
“[The taunts] were most psychological. They just wanted to see me scream and bawl,” she said in the film. “There was this girl who would stub her cigarette on me every day. So one day I got fed up. The next time she tried to do it, I grabbed her by the hair and put her down.”
That fighting spirit has stayed with her, she says, through adulthood, which she spent mostly unemployed and living on state benefits. Through the loss of her mother, her most constant companion, and eventually that long wait in the queue to audition for Britain’s Got Talent, the show where she would initially be judged by her looks before she opened her mouth to sing.
Yet even after earning an estimated £18 million (Dh108, million), becoming the only artist since The Beatles to have her first two albums go to number one in both the US and UK, she’s still got a lot of other battles to fight.
She often feels lonely despite her fame, is scared of getting hurt, and after a lifetime of being put down, constantly lives in fear that all of this could suddenly disappear.
That’s why she describes her life as a rollercoaster.
“I don’t want to get off because I’m having such a lovely time,” she says in that brief, almost cursory style. “But yes, it takes a lifetime to get used to it. I guess it’s a gradual process.
“Because of all this travelling, I don’t feel so much lonely now but, you know, people who become famous do feel that sense of isolation.”
She’s still not comfortable being called superstar either, preferring ‘artist’.
“I suppose because I’m not flashy, that’s why they call me unlikely,” she laughs that laugh. “Also, I can’t compare myself to other stars. I think I look more like their mum ... like their mum or aunty. But I think my music appeals to everybody and not just a category.”
Boyle’s fifth album, Home for Christmas, was released in October, and features a duet with Elvis Priestley for the classic hymn O Come, all ye Faithful, which she will perform in Abu Dhabi.
“It feels really surreal. I’ve been a mad Elvis fan for so many years and when Sony Music came up with the idea, I was excited,” she says. “The Gift, my second album was also a Chirstmas album but it was a mixture of songs, not just Christmas songs. This is wholly Christmas songs. It’s my most specialised album. There’s something for everybody.”
All sales from the Elvis Priestly duet will go to Save the Children UK, a charity Boyle has been closely associated with.
Miracle Hymn, another song in the album, was written for the film The Christmas Candle in which Boyle makes her first acting debut.
“I just thought I’d give it a shot and try new things,” she says of getting into films. “I like to surprise people. That’s why I’m learning the piano now and then maybe eventually give songwriting a go.”
Her tour, which brings her to Abu Dhabi, has taken her across Scotland and includes performances all over the UK for the most part of 2014 with more dates to be added.
“I hope that I can get a chance to see most of the world. I’ve only been mostly in and out but this is my first ever real tour,” she says, adding that she goes back to Blackburn once in a while, to the same council house she shared with her mother, despite having bought a few other houses, for “a bit of balance”.
She still hasn’t found love, and is still holding out hope to find her man. But even if she doesn’t, she says she still wants to be “touring, making albums and making people happy”.
And oh, there’s one more thing she’d really, really like: world peace.
“It’s something money can’t buy,” she says. “I’d like to see people together, working with each other in harmony, not against each other.”
*Susan Boyle in Concert takes place at Zayed Cricket Stadium in Abu Dhabi on December 13. Tickets are priced Dh250 (Bronze), Dh350 (Silver), Dh495 (Gold), Dh595 (Platinum) and Dh1,500 (VIP). Go to ticketmaster.ae
