Boyle's Now a Prisoner of Her Own Fame

It's been exactly 1 year since Susan Boyle's star-making turn on Britain's Got Talent , and the singer is now crazy famous—but she doesn't seem to be enjoying it much. Friends say Boyle's suffered a breakdown and doesn't enjoy her celebrity, writes Ben Macintyre for the Times of London. She fears she'll be dropped by her label, and she hasn't even moved into the new house she bought.

It's ironic, writes Macintyre, because this summer also marks the 50th anniversary of the great To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee's lone book. Lee managed to get off the fame carousel as quickly as she could, and she faded into quiet obscurity. “The celebrity industry would not permit that today,” he writes. “The Faustian pact demands that privacy be surrendered in return for fame, and success must be repeated endlessly, until failure comes along." (More To Kill A Mockingbird stories.)