susan boyle hospitalized

susan boyle hospitalized
Hours after being beaten into second place on the “Britain’s Got Talent” TV show, Susan Boyle, an instant celebrity who rose from obscurity to global renown and recognition, was taken from a London hotel to a private clinic under police escort Sunday night, the police and her associates said Monday.
Scotland Yard did not explain what she was suffering from, or identify her by name. But, in response to questions about Ms. Boyle, a spokeswoman said: “Police were called to doctors assessing a woman under the Mental Health Act. The woman was taken voluntarily by ambulance to a clinic. At the request of doctors, police accompanied the ambulance.”
British newspapers reported that she had been begun to behave erratically after losing to a dance group called Diversity in the Saturday night finals of the show that had transformed her into a worldwide phenomenon. In public she had seemed gracious in defeat.
But one of the show’s judges, Piers Morgan, said Monday that Ms. Boyle, 47, was emotionally drained and exhausted. “Nobody has had to put up with the kind of attention Susan has had. Nobody could have predicted it,” he told GMTV.
“It has been crazy, she has gone from anonymity to being the most downloaded woman in history,” he said.
“She was very tired and hasn’t been sleeping. She has just gone away to have some time to herself and to sleep and eat, doing all the things she hasn’t been able to do in the last week.”
The development is certain to renew discussion about the intense pressures that build on contestants in talent shows that form a large part of Britain’s popular television diet.
Fred O’Neil, a former voice coach, told the BBC: “It’s such a tragic situation, a woman who really just loves to sing, an innocent woman really, who is just caught up in this fame game.”
“I just hope that whatever fame that she has got out of this will eventually bring her some happiness. Obviously at the present time it is not,” he said.
While newspaper reports said she had been angry and said “I hate this show” after her defeat, the winners said she had been “gracious” and “nice.”
The final on Saturday became Britain’s most watched television program for five years, the Press Association news agency reported, with a peak of 19.2 million viewers.
Diversity, the winners, took 24.9% of the public vote in the final, above Boyle’s 20.2% share. Just under four million people voted, according to ITV, the channel that aired it.
Ms. Boyle’s stardom began when up to 90 million people saw a video of her audition posted on YouTube.
British news reports said Ms. Boyle had been taken to The Priory, an up-scale clinic often associated with celebrity patients. But the clinic declined to comment.
Such is the intense interest in Ms. Boyle that Prime Minister Gordon Brown, embroiled in the worst political crisis of his career, took time during a television interview Monday to wish the singer well.
For weeks Ms. Boyle was the undisputed favorite as people around the world followed the fortunes of a middle-aged woman from a small town in Scotland singing with such poise and power. But adulation begin to ease last week with various tabloid newspapers reporting erratic and allegedly abusive behavior as she awaited the finals.