This Susan Boyle saga reminds me of a Nelson Algren short story in which a little boy from a bad home is at a friend's third-floor flat playing with a puppy and feels happiness for the first time in his life:
We must have been making a lot of noise, because this kid's mother walked past and said jokingly, to make us be a little quiet, "Why don't you kids just throw that dog out of the window?" I was so happy at just being there, so overwhelmed with an eagerness to please, that I picked up the pup, walked out the window and threw it out. Just like that.
I can still see that poor damned pup sprawling and turning and pawing for a foothold in mid-air on its way down to the pavement. And felt, suddenly, that I was falling too.