MANY people would pay good money for a private audience with a worldwide superstar.
For Susan Boyle’s next-door neighbours, however, hearing her sing every day became a nightmare – leading to rows and police calls.
Teresa Miller, 40, claims Boyle would play her own singles and perform karaoke at the top of her voice. Her favourites were said to include Wild Horses, I Dreamed a Dream and Donny Osmond’s This is the Moment.
Miller said she complained, but in return Boyle and other neighbours accused her of antisocial behaviour – and Miller and her disabled 10-year-old daughter Daniella were told to leave their rented house by their landlord in October.
The singer then rented the property and plans to buy it.
Miller said the saga had left her in debt and depressed. “I’ve been through hell,” she said.
“Susan is a good singer, but once she had a song out on CD she would listen to it over and over and start singing to it on a microphone. It would go on most days, one time until after 10pm.
“Now I’ve been turned out. I just don’t know why anyone would want to build a six-bedroom house in the middle of a council estate. Why take a house that a family could be in?”
Representatives of Boyle, 52, deny her singing caused problems and said Miller’s claims had been dismissed by other neighbours.
The entertainer, who lives with her cat in a former council house in Blackburn, West Lothian, has amassed an estimated £22 million (R386m) after selling more than 20 million copies of her five studio albums.
Miller, a single mother whose daughter has muscle problems, said she used to get on well with her neighbour and voted for her on Britain’s Got Talent in 2009. Boyle would sing occasionally, but her performances became “unbearable” after she found fame.
“She used to sing Wild Horses over and over again. It sounded like she was doing a karaoke,” Miller said. “Something played the backing music and she would do the singing. She always used a microphone. You could hear it all over the house. There was a Donny Osmond one that she sang for a few weeks. It would go on, then off for a couple of hours, then back on. Everybody likes a bit of music, but there is a limit.”
Miller complained to the council about two years ago. In turn, Boyle called police to report her neigh- bour for antisocial behaviour. Last August Miller was served two months’ notice to move out by her landlords Romano and Claudia Pacitti.
The only rental in the area she could find at short notice needed furnishing and, in total, she claims to have had to lay out £2 000 on the move, much of which she had to borrow from relatives.
Miller said: “I was devastated. We haven’t spoken to Susan since. She’s got the full building to herself now so she can blare it out all she wants.”
As well as denying that Boyle’s singing had caused problems, her agent said she did not force her neighbours from their house and had started renting the property only after they had already been asked to leave.
Miller’s landlord Claudia Pacitti said: “We served Teresa with a notice to quit because there were three serious issues with that tenancy. It was a business decision and has absolutely nothing to do with Susan Boyle.
“We had complaints of anti- social behaviour, not just from Susan, from other neighbours as well. Susan did not ask me to remove Teresa. I approached Susan. There was nothing underhanded.” – Daily Mail