Simon Cowell looks back at one of Britain’s Got Talent’s most unforgettable moments with serious regret.
Appears in the debut episode of Celebrity graves on May 6, the music mogul admitted that he and his fellow judges were “terrible” in the way they reacted to Susan Boyle before her now-iconic audition in 2009.
“I look back and I just think, ‘my God, we look so awful, awful’,” said Cowell, 66. “I actually don’t think we look bad enough. I think we were even worse than that and they said, ‘you look awful’.”
Cowell referred to the visible skepticism shared between himself, Amanda Holden and Piers Morgan before Boyle stunned the audience with his powerful interpretation of I dreamed a dream from Les Misérables.
“It was a bit of a wake up call. You can’t judge a book by its cover,” Cowell admitted. “We look disgusting…”
The audition remains one of reality TV’s most talked-about moments, catapulting Boyle to global fame almost overnight.
Boyle herself has previously spoken about the painful experience, admitting that she felt deeply judged when she first stepped onto the stage. “It felt quite suffocating, almost like I was an act in a freak show, and it hurt,” she shared Irish mirror.
Despite the difficult start, Boyle had the last word. She finished as runner-up that season and became an international sensation, with a career that has reportedly earned her an estimated £30 million.
