Authors: Emily Herbert
‘It was very confusing for both us and the talent on the show,’ said Piers. ‘When there are four of you and two people vote one way and two vote the other, it gets difficult to decide who goes through.’
Everyone’s feathers had got a little ruffled, it seemed, and the new signing certainly hadn’t worked. Kelly herself
was said to be very upset by Simon Cowell. Whatever the reality, it had clearly been a mistake.
At the same time, Piers’ other television work was continuing, with documentaries on Dubai and the Brits in Hollywood, as well as a series called
Life Stories,
which was another interview format and made for compelling viewing. It featured Swedish-born presenter Ulrika Jonsson talking about the time she was raped. ‘I just lay there,’ she recalled. ‘And he said, “We should go to the cinema,” and I said, “I can’t go.” I stayed and he left.’
By now, public opinion on Piers was divided quite sharply. People either liked him or loathed him, something he was well aware of – and he even admitted he wasn’t quite the rhino in riot gear some people made him out to be. He had feelings, which could be hurt. ‘People do actually come up in the street and say they really like me, but I know there are others who don’t. I’m a bit like Marmite,’ he told an interviewer on his old paper, the
Daily Mirror.
‘My family don’t recognise me on television. They say, “Why don’t you just be yourself?” And I tell them it’s because a lot of people know that I’m simply playing a role, plus it’s quite lucrative. My mother goes to parties and there’s always one or two who just want to hurl abuse at her about me. My youngest brother doesn’t even admit to knowing me and I don’t blame him – I wouldn’t either.
‘Look, I used to clear the front page to bury people, so I can’t complain when it happens to me. I’m putting myself up to be whacked – it’s part of the game – but does anyone like waking up and being called a fat, talentless,
useless git? Not really. You pretend you don’t mind, but underneath it all you want to kill the bastards. I take a huge deep breath, let it out and it just fades away. It takes ten seconds. Then it’s gone.’
Despite this, Piers was well and truly having the last laugh. Rich, famous and successful, with a happy relationship boiling away in the background, he was getting to the stage where he really had nothing to prove. His shows were compulsive viewing, the latest featuring Richard Branson talking about the time he was nearly expelled from school, aged thirteen, when he was caught sneaking out of the headmaster’s daughter’s bedroom. Piers’ easygoing manner was indeed extracting one confession after another from his subjects – and he was doing it without malice. There was none of the Jonathan Ross-style attempts to make fun of the guests, just
easy-going
chat.
Katie Price was next, castigating herself for sleeping with Gareth Gates when she was pregnant and talking about the time when, as a child, she’d been approached by a paedophile in the park.
All of this paled into insignificance, however, compared to what was to become one of the biggest stories of 2009, courtesy of
BGT.
For some time, rumours had been doing the rounds that there had been a remarkable discovery of an extremely gifted singer from a small town in Scotland but, until that particular episode was broadcast in April that year, the exact nature and identity of the artist had been a mystery. Now, both judges and the audience
watched, bemused, as a dumpy woman with an awful hairstyle and a frumpy dress came out on stage: her name was Susan Boyle. She told the crowd that she wanted to sing like Elaine Paige, which received a rather negative response. After this, she did some awkward gyrations and everyone braced themselves for certain embarrassment – until she began to sing.
Susan Boyle’s transformation from frumpy spinster to international star was truly a Cinderella story, with Piers and his fellow judges playing the role of the Fairy Godmother. ‘I am giving you the biggest “yes” I have ever given anybody,’ Piers told her. ‘You said you wanted to be like Elaine Paige and everyone laughed at you – you proved them wrong.’
Susan was a mass of contradictions: the voice of an angel, but the demeanour of exactly what she was, namely a forty-eight-year-old with learning difficulties who had never had a relationship. After that first appearance, she was rushed off to the hairdressers and the grooming specialists, where she was generally smartened up, and it appeared that she had developed a massive crush on Piers.
‘Up until now I have never met the right man but maybe that will change now I have met Piers,’ she said after the show. ‘He’s a very handsome man. It is quite hard to choose between Piers and Simon because they’re both lovely, but I think it would definitely be Piers.’
Piers responded with remarkable good humour. As media interest in her rocketed, he became a sort of protector. Behind the scenes, there were reports of eccentric
behaviour and her family began to interfere in the whole process, calling on Simon Cowell to forget about putting her into the finals and sign her up for a recording contract straight away. Piers was always there to calm matters down, tell everyone that Susan was fine and was coping with the pressure; that everything would be all right. From his former role as trouble maker, he was now turning out to be the one bringing peace. And, as for Susan’s increasingly ardent proclamations about how attractive he was, he never once allowed her, on his behalf, to become a figure of fun.
Indeed, both were interviewed on the American talk show
Larry King Live
– which Piers was about to take over – and he used the opportunity to charm her. ‘The great appeal and charm of Susan is the way she is: she is her own woman,’ he declared, before adding, ‘I would like to extend an invitation to you to have dinner with me in London, Susan.’
‘I accept,’ said Susan.
Piers also apologised for the way the judges had reacted when she first came out on stage. ‘We thought you were going to be a bit of a joke act, to be honest with you,’ he said. ‘I had never heard a more surprising, extraordinary voice coming out of somebody so unexpected.’
And the faux flirtation continued. In the semi-final of
BGT,
Susan sang ‘Memory’ from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical
Cats
– ‘This is for you, Piersy baby,’ she cried.
Piers later recounted what happened after the show. ‘I’m never going to forget what happened to me at 10.32pm
last night,’ he said. ‘That was the moment when Susan Boyle ran down a flight of stairs at the Fountain Studios in North London, flung herself into my arms and planted a five-second “smacker” right bang on my lips!’
All his Hollywood chums, including Bruce Willis and The Hoff, expressed interested in this new phenomenon. But, as further reports emerged, Piers became increasingly protective: ‘Susan is finding it very, very difficult to cope and to stay calm,’ he announced. ‘She has been in tears many times over the last few days and even, fleetingly, felt like quitting the show altogether at one point and fleeing all the attention.’ Yet still, she managed to carry on.
In the event, Susan was pipped to the post by the
all-male
dance troupe Diversity, who won the show, but it was clear that a new star had been born. However, for a brief time it seemed as though a crisis was at hand; clearly overcome by all the emotion and stress, Susan ended up spending a short time in rehab at The Priory, which led to widespread criticism of the way she’d been handled by the
BGT
team, something Simon Cowell himself admitted could have been improved on. But the problem proved short-lived and she quickly became a star. At the time of writing it is estimated that Susan Boyle has amassed a multi-million-pound fortune, and she remains probably the biggest star ever produced by reality television.
Piers himself wasn’t doing too badly, either. ITV was so pleased with the success of
Life Stories
that it moved the show to a primetime position on Saturday night – a slot once occupied by Michael Parkinson – to start in
the autumn. Quite clearly, Piers was shaping up to be the prime interviewer of his generation. Affirmation of his status, if it were needed, came when he was invited on to another famous interview slot, although this time as a guest, when he appeared on Radio 4’s
Desert Island Discs.
His favourite record was ‘Mambo Italiano’ by Dean Martin; Brian Keenan’s
An Evil Cradling
was the book he would like to take with him and his luxury was a cricket bat. There was also the clearest hint to date of just how serious his relationship with Celia Walden was becoming: ‘I met Stevie Wonder last summer in LA,’ he told presenter Kirsty Young. ‘I got him to record on video a marriage proposal to Celia – so should I ever need to use it, I have Stevie Wonder ordering Celia to marry me.’
And indeed, at the beginning of 2010, the rumours were confirmed and it became official: Piers and Celia were engaged. It had been increasingly clear that this had been on the cards for some time now, and with Piers long since divorced, he was free to marry again. Even Celia’s father George Walden had come round to the idea.
But there was still a television career to be pursued and next up was filming the new series of
BGT
. Simon Cowell was ill and so Louis Walsh stepped in to cover for him; knowing how to drum up viewing figures, he promptly took a swipe at Piers. ‘He’s a poor man’s Cowell,’ he jeered. ‘He’s absolutely desperate to be like him, he even acts like him. He knows nothing about music – he’s just a journalist. He’s never had a hit in the charts, so how can he judge music? I honestly can’t believe how he gets away with it.’
Naturally, all this was like a red rag to a bull. ‘Louis is a poor man’s Jason Gardiner and that’s about as bad a place as you can find yourself in the talent-judging business,’ Piers observed. ‘He is a giggling, fawning leprechaun whose critiques carry the weight of a two-ounce gherkin. It’s like having a grandpa on the panel!’
Cowell, who was still suffering from the flu, wearily left his sickbed to return to work early. Even Amanda hadn’t been able to persuade Louis and Piers to make up and become friends.
At the same time, all Piers’ shows continued to make headlines. The then Prime Minister Gordon Brown appeared on
Life Stories
and was moved to tears when talking about the death of his baby daughter, Jennifer Jane. (He also discussed how he had met his wife for the first time on a plane, and answered in the negative when Piers cheekily asked if he’d joined the Mile High Club.) Next up was none other than Simon Cowell himself, who opened up for the first time about his girlfriend, Hollywood make-up artist Mezhgan Hussainy. ‘She’s very special; she could be the one,’ he enthused.
On
Life Stories,
Piers continued getting the stars to open up, with Joan Collins confessing to taking cocaine and Geri Halliwell owning up to an eating disorder.
Piers mused on his success: ‘Asking Alistair Darling if he’s good in bed was difficult, but I did it,’ he declared. ‘The more shameless you are as an interviewer, the better the interview. I have no shame about asking anyone anything – but, then, I
am
shameless.’
Really, it was Piers’ natural curiosity about other people that was standing him in such good stead. ‘When I read books on holiday it’s always biographies,’ he once revealed. ‘I don’t care if they’re about Matisse, Margaret Thatcher or Jade Goody – I’m fascinated by people’s lives. When I interview people, I think, what if Sharon Osbourne came in to the pub, what would everyone want to know?’ Then again, of triumphs such as the Nick Clegg story (Cleggover), he said, ‘And there you go: that’s his obituary headline. He didn’t have to answer. I’m not sure it necessarily did him damage, although he might have had a conversation with Mrs Clegg when he got home.’
The main thing for Piers, of course, was that he’d got a good story.
Meanwhile, over at
BGT,
Piers and his fellow presenter Amanda Holden were the next to have a backstage
bust-up
, although it seems more than likely that they were playing to get publicity for the show.
‘I’m not Amanda – I don’t share her view that you should sell your wedding and tell all about your sex texts,’ declared Piers. ‘She’ll do anything, though, if the cheque’s big enough.’
‘Piers would love to have his wedding in a magazine,’ snapped Amanda in return. ‘But with his huge ego, he wouldn’t be able to fit a photographer in the church at the same time.’
Amanda’s real role, however, was to keep her
larger-than
-life fellow judges bound to reality. ‘Piers and Simon never behave,’ she declared. ‘I’m there to rein them in.
They still have their spats and waste time arguing. Simon is ruled by his head and by his wallet, and Piers is also very cerebral. Neither of them think with their heart – neither of them has one, to be honest! I add a bit of heart and emotion to the panel, but then Piers pisses me off because he steals my lines. Once, I leaned over to him and said, “Ooh, he looks like the guy from Hot Chocolate. He has all the moves.” And because we go to him first, he said, “You look like the guy from Hot Chocolate. You have the moves.” Then they come to me and I’m like: “Er…?” It’s so annoying.’
Of course, reality TV has often been accused of making people think they can become stars overnight with no work involved, but Piers was adamant
BGT
was not like that. ‘The culture of celebrity has become a problem,’ he admitted at a charity event for Norwood, during which he was interviewed by media tycoon Richard Desmond. ‘You don’t mind someone being famous if it’s based on real talent – that’s why I like talent shows that encourage people to chase their dreams, but what I don’t like is talent-less wastrels who appear on telly just for the sake of it. I find
Big Brother
incredibly vacuous and it chips away at the mystique and magic of celebrities. The glamour of Marilyn Monroe was something to look up to and be excited by.’
In the same interview, Richard Desmond also asked him about
Life Stories.
‘My favourite guest was Ronnie Corbett,’ he said. ‘He got up in the middle of the interview, walked over to the side of the stage and started
a monologue – and it was like watching comedy history. But Geri Halliwell was quite tricky to interview; she was guarded and difficult but that’s not to say I didn’t like her.