Noelle McCarthy: Frumpy spinster sacrifice for the tabloids

So poor old Susan's lost it. Cracked up, freaked out, melted down and likewise wigged out.

Or has she? Following her surprise defeat in Britain's Got Talent last weekend, we now hear that Susan Boyle, the badger-faced Scotswoman with the voice that surprised us all, has been admitted to a rehabilitation facility, suffering from exhaustion.

Not that that tells us much, really, exhaustion being one of the hardest working euphemisms in the cloud cuckoo world of celebrity rehab.

A sturdy old chestnut of an ailment, exhaustion, drafted in to cover all manner of bad choice and misdemeanour - from a three-week bender on strippers and rum to full-blown drug induced psychosis and all the fleshpots in between.

Boyle's sojourn at The Priory could have been occasioned by anything from an intimation of mortality to actual dementia, such is the broad circumference of the term. It's impossible to be sure.

Not that there's anything remotely surprising about this. From the moment the beetle-browed pudding in the lacy frock popped up on our screens on YouTube her deal was sealed. And not in a good way either.

You probably remember where you were the first time you saw her, the dumpy old thing with the brillo pad hair, wiggling grotesquely at Simon Cowell, trying to flirt with Piers Morgan, sticking her hip out, and generally being a bit mad. You remember cringing maybe, or being slightly appalled at the cock-eyed tilt at sexiness from such a sad old spinster.

You might even have been watching it through your hands, ready for the inevitable car crash to come.

I bet you remember though, exactly where you were when you first heard this village idiot, straight out of central casting, open her mouth and sing.

And sing she did, occasioning billions of goosebumps worldwide. Admit it, the shivers ran up your spine as she belted out that god-awful show tune and your jaw dropped in unison with all the chavs in the audience who seconds before had been laughing at her the way you might have been, if you were as cruel as them.

That was the moment of Susan Boyle. Her triumph, her redemption, the delicious surprise she had for us all.

I was working when I saw the clip for the first time, put on to it by Jim Mora who wanted to know what all the fuss was about.

Watching it brought a lump to my throat, and made me cry.

Later we all picked it to pieces, noticing how it was edited for maximum emotional impact, how it demanded identification with the shocked judges, how, as Jim pointed out, you couldn't really even hear much of the song over the roar of the crowd.

Shamelessly manipulative as it was, however, it worked. As a spectacle, Susan's song succeeded on a fundamental level.

Pity and terror are what we need from drama in order for it to work, said Aristotle. We got pity and terror from the eyebrows alone.

And so Susan became a phenomenon. A bona fide YouTube sensation.

Then the Yanks piled into it and things went really mad. Susan was on CNN, on Oprah, everywhere. And surprisingly, wonderfully, she remained unchanged.

Wisely, she, or rather the Svengalis who were herding her, realised what gold they had in rough, and didn't touch a thing. The monobrow stayed, as did the crowded mouth, and the wiry home-cut hair.

And that's why we loved her. Because what's better than an ugly duckling that can sing like a lark, but refuses to do the peacocking that makes us all bristle?

For a few weeks there, Susan was clutched to the collective bosom with a fervour that surprised and delighted by turns. It couldn't last though, how could it, given the searing heat of the Sun?

If you read the British tabloids you'll already be familiar with the black-browed diva that is SuBo, she of the gargantuan ego and gutter-mouth tirades. You'll have followed her outbursts, her episodes, her walkouts and all of her demands.

You knew she was a monster in the making, and you're not at all surprised she's been carted off to the funny farm, it was all in the post since she started believing her own legend after all.

You've got to love this fearless pursuit of the truth, by these bastions of journalism, the likes of the Sun, and the Mirror, and the Daily Mail. Most of all you've got to love their patent knack of perpetuating downfall, only to drown in crocodile tears while feasting over the bones.

Susan Boyle isn't merely exhausted, whatever that means. She's dead actually, as dead as phenomena go anyway. She's the latest sacrificial offering to the God of tabloid infamy, but you can rest assured, its maw will be swinging open again soon.