Susan Boyle’s jaw-dropping audition on Britain’s Got Talent is one of the talent show’s most memorable moments – however, creator and judge Simon Cowell has admitted that it was a “wakeup call” for him on how he treated contestants.

Scottish church volunteer Boyle, 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 “I Dreamed a Dream” from musical Les Misérables.

Speaking about the audition 17 years on, Cowell said that his reaction to Boyle walking on stage was “awful”.

“But actually, I remember saying, I don't think we look bad enough. I think we were even worse than that,” he told the podcast, Tales from the Celebrity Trenches on Wednesday (6 May).

“I said, ‘we're going to just tell it as it is.’ And they went, ‘you look awful.’ I said, ‘we are awful. All of us.’ 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.

“And 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.

“We 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.”

Cowell added that Boyle’s audition on the show was “so important for so many reasons” – and led to some self-reflection.

“I think we all looked at ourselves at that point and went, ‘oh, God, we're all terrible.’ I do remember, actually, because she didn't win obviously. So I ran up to the stage. I said to her, “Susan, I'm going to sign you, just so you know, it doesn't matter. It really, really doesn't matter.” Because I knew she was going to be upset.”

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.

The story of her life was turned into a 2012 musical, I Dreamed a Dream: The Musical, and she later performed for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Pageant and the 2014 Commonwealth Games.

In 2023, she suffered a minor stroke, but returned to the stage just months later to perform on Britain’s Got Talent. Last year, she serenaded Marty Supreme star Timothée Chalamet for his birthday after the actor described her as one of his five favourite Brits.

“She dreamt bigger than all of us. Who wasn’t moved by that?” he told the BBC in December.

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