Wagons drawn around Susan Boyle

By April MacIntyre May 29, 2009, 13:41 GMT

Piers Morgan - It seems odd that the British press, which quickly elevated a Scottish smalltown woman to superstardom, is now dispatching reporters to her hometown to "find" anything they can use now to bring her down a peg. © Tina Gill / PR Photos

It seems odd that the British press, which quickly elevated a Scottish smalltown woman to superstardom, is now dispatching reporters to her hometown to "find" anything they can use now to bring her down a peg.

Susan Boyle, like Welshman Paul Potts, was an unlikely hero of the reality series, "Britain's Got talent,"   But unlike Potts, whose recurrent media coverage themes were that he was an "unassuming" mobile phone salesman who dreamed of bigger things, this similar story of unknown Scottish lass Boyle is met with far more skepticism and derision. 

It is sexism, or does Boyle just rub people the wrong way?

The producers of the series have circled their wagons around the woman with the angelic voice after some unidentified people apparently baited her over her BGT competition, at the hotel where these out-of-town contestants are housed.

The stress saw Boyle lashing out and swearing at her verbal accosters, and the fallout reporting has been a nitpicking of Susan's past by, again, unidentified "sources" from her small town of West Lothian telling the likes of The Sun and others hearsay of Boyle's past behavior.

The BBC interviewed a consultant psychologist for another reality show, Big Brother, who speculated that the "harrowing" abuse that Boyle was undergoing, undermined her mental health, which was described as seemingly fragile and needed constant minding.

When did losing your temper (when provoked) in a flash moment (after having a cocktail, as was reported) equate to mental fragility?

The affable judge of the series, Piers Morgan, spoke to BBC Radio about Boyle, who he has championed and lauded from the get-go after her initial audition floored him in Glasgow.

According to Morgan, Boyle was "distraught" at negative media headlines this week and nearly quit the ITV talent show.
 
On BBC Radio, Piers once again came to Boyle's defense.

"She had a rocky moment a couple of days ago when she woke up and saw some very negative headlines and suddenly felt the pressure of world attention," he said.

"You have to remember this is someone who has gone from complete anonymity to global stardom in the space of six weeks. It's understandable. People should give her a bit of slack. She's 24 hours from the biggest day of her life and she's starting to feel the heat."

"She is very distraught, to the extent where she packed her bags and was going to leave the show," he said.

"She just didn't see the point of continuing if every time she picked up the newspapers there was another avalanche of abuse."