How the other half live
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THERE was bad PR for being rich and famous last week, whether you were Scottish songstress Susan Boyle or TAMARA ECCLESTONE BILLION DOLLAR GIRL.
If being super-rich is being sued by your dad (for wanting to name your shampoo line Formula One), but also having to pick up your own lapdog’s poo, then it doesn’t seem that good a deal.
But could it just be that the wrong people get all the luck?
Gorgeous Tamara is pretty enough to model for Michelle Mone’s bra empire even without daddy’s millions. But apparently relaxed enough to order in loads of gorgeous girls for boyfriend Omar’s birthday do – even a naked female as sushi plate – Tamara was strangely jealous enough to stomp out of a £25,000 charity do when his ex turned up in the same room.
But at least she wasn’t as defensive as Susan Boyle showing us round her crib in village Blackburn in the unmissable
SUSAN BOYLE: AN UNLIKELY SUPERSTAR.
Flapping about the family home that now just held Susan, she apologised for any untidiness and went all girly when the presenter spotted her Donny Osmond bed cover.
But things got serious fairly quickly when he asked how Susan – starved of oxygen at birth and left "slow", described being bullied at school.
"I’ve always got that insecurity, that’s not going to go away," Susan revealed after talking about being burned with cigarettes and having to learn to defend herself.
And though she’s the woman with the million dollar voice, she still calls Simon Cowell "Mr Cowell".
Asked if she wouldn’t prefer to live in a castle rather than her ex council house, Susan rolled out the matter-of-fact defensive armour: "You’ve got to keep yourself grounded and not get ideas above your station … and castles are draughty!"
There was the same slightly too smiley jokiness in the very revealing new series MY TRANSEXUAL SUMMER, an everyday tale of boys who want to be girls and girls who want to be boys.
From the very glamorous-looking ash-blonde Drew to badly-wigged new girl Sara who hadn’t told her parents yet that she no longer wanted to be a boy, there was plenty of pain behind the brave smiles.
The voiceover revealed that a transgender person was murdered every 72 hours in the world.
And having got dressed up and gone out in London’s West End, it was only minutes before strangers started being a bit forward.
At the start, it was Drew with his supportive mum, who seemed the most together.
But halfway in, we discovered the make-up was just a more sophisticated disguise for the same fears as Sara.
Drew said: "When I wake up and look in the mirror, I don’t see the person I want to be."
She was the first to get up at the weekend retreat because it took two and a half hours to put on the make-up.
"I know deep down I have man features," said the face that looked like the ultimate woman.
