Britain’s Got Talent star Susan Boyle leaves £300k ‘posh’ home to return to her council house roots

Susan Boyle rose to fame in 2009 after her Britains Got Talent audition catapulted her into the public eye and earned her a loyal fanbase. The Scottish star, who turned 65 on 1 April, went on to sell over 21 million records worldwide, allowing her to upgrade her home from before she found fame – but she later did a complete U-turn.

Before performing for Simon Cowell and his fellow BGT judges, Susan lived in a three-bedroom former council house in Blackburn, West Lothian, which she had purchased for £65,000. In 2010, she paid £300,000 for a new-build detached five-bedroom house on the other side of town, but struggled to feel at home there.

Moving back into her former home

Susan found it difficult settling into the ‘Posh House’ as she called it, and soon moved out. Instead of selling it, she left her niece residing there.

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In 2014, she found the perfect middle ground between size and familiarity. The star bought the house next door to her former council house for £110,000, combining the two properties to create her dream home. 

Inside Susan’s converted house

In 2016, the ‘Wild Horses’ singer took the Daily Mail inside the house she moved back into, revealing a modest interior featuring mahogany-hued leather sofas, a mantlepiece adorned with family photographs, and a bed covered in giant soft toys.  

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Though she has become a millionaire since her talent show days, Susan is not interested in decking out her home in expensive items. The Daily Mail reported: “While the cupboards upstairs are crammed with sparkly show dresses and Miu Miu shoes, there is no dishwasher in the kitchen, no car in the drive, no luxury in her life.”

However, she hasn’t shied away from renovating the pad to ensure it suits her tastes. She told Edinburgh Evening News in 2019: “The house has been needing doing up for some time, I was beginning to lose things in it.

“I’ve had the kitchen done, the living room papered, the floors done and a summerhouse put out the back,” she added, also noting that the renovations have made her home look “bigger and more homely” than before.

Happy in a humble home

Finding happiness in her home has been crucial for Susan, who has admitted to struggling at times with the public attention her public has afforded her. “I’m managing things a lot better now. It was a slow process. Everything is with me,” she told The Sun in 2019.

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“But I’m coping inside a lot better now, and I’m ready, more than ready, for what’s coming.”