{"id":29764,"date":"2026-05-06T09:29:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T09:29:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/29764\/"},"modified":"2026-05-06T09:29:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T09:29:11","slug":"simon-cowell-admits-he-was-horrible-to-susan-boyle-on-britains-got-talent-it-was-a-wakeup-call","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/29764\/","title":{"rendered":"Simon Cowell admits he was \u2018horrible\u2019 to Susan Boyle on Britain\u2019s Got Talent: \u2018It was a wakeup call\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Susan Boyle\u2019s jaw-dropping audition on Britain\u2019s Got Talent<\/a> is one of the talent show\u2019s most memorable moments \u2013 however, creator and judge Simon Cowell has admitted that it was a \u201cwakeup call\u201d for him on how he treated contestants.<\/p>\n

Scottish church volunteer Boyle<\/a>, now 65, auditioned on the ITV show back in 2009, initially being sniggered at by judges Cowell, Amanda Holden and Piers Morgan after telling them that she hoped to be as successful as Elaine Paige. However, she immediately blew them away with her stunning rendition of \u201cI Dreamed a Dream\u201d from musical Les Mis\u00e9rables. <\/p>\n

Speaking about the audition 17 years on, Cowell said that his reaction to Boyle walking on stage was \u201cawful\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"Susan<\/p>\n

Susan Boyle in her first audition for Britain’s Got Talent in 2009 (ITV)<\/p>\n

\u201cBut actually, I remember saying, I don’t think we look bad enough. I think we were even worse than that,\u201d he told the podcast, Tales from the Celebrity Trenches on Wednesday (6 May).<\/p>\n

\u201cI said, \u2018we’re going to just tell it as it is.\u2019 And they went, \u2018you look awful.\u2019 I said, \u2018we are awful. All of us.\u2019 I mean, that look Piers gives me. It’s just I think of all the looks I’ve ever remembered, that might be the worst.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I was just as bad. We all were. And then, you know, thank God for her, it all worked out well. And, of course, I had the ability to cut all that stuff out, but it was a bit of a wakeup call. Which is, you can’t judge a book by its cover.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do look disgusting, but you got to hold your hands up at that moment. A lot of people are going to realise in about 24 hours that we’re just horrible. And so we’re going to say sorry. And that’s what we did.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cowell added that Boyle\u2019s audition on the show was \u201cso important for so many reasons\u201d \u2013 and led to some self-reflection.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we all looked at ourselves at that point and went, \u2018oh, God, we’re all terrible.\u2019 I do remember, actually, because she didn’t win obviously. So I ran up to the stage. I said to her, \u201cSusan, I’m going to sign you, just so you know, it doesn’t matter. It really, really doesn’t matter.\u201d Because I knew she was going to be upset.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Susan<\/p>\n

Susan Boyle sending Timothee Chalamet a birthday message in December (A24)<\/p>\n

While Boyle lost out on winning BGT to dance group Diversity, her debut album, I Dreamed a Dream, sold over 10 million copies and became one of the best-selling albums of the century.<\/p>\n

The story of her life was turned into a 2012 musical, I Dreamed a Dream: The Musical, and she later performed for the Queen\u2019s Diamond Jubilee Pageant and the 2014 Commonwealth Games.<\/p>\n

In 2023, she suffered a minor stroke<\/a>, but returned to the stage just months later to perform on Britain\u2019s Got Talent. Last year, she serenaded Marty Supreme star Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet for his birthday after the actor described her as one of his five favourite Brits.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe dreamt bigger than all of us. Who wasn\u2019t moved by that?\u201d he told the BBC in December<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Susan Boyle\u2019s jaw-dropping audition on Britain\u2019s Got Talent is one of the talent show\u2019s most memorable moments \u2013…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29765,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[390,13,171,12939,392,1738,12940],"class_list":{"0":"post-29764","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-britain","8":"tag-amanda-holden","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-britains-got-talent","11":"tag-piers-morgan","12":"tag-simon-cowell","13":"tag-susan-boyle","14":"tag-timothee-chalamet"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116526931493568766","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29764"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29764\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}