Susan Boyle, Britain's Got Talent singing supremo, talks about how fame was like a steam-roller, flattening her.

In a candid interview with the Daily Mail, Susan says that after the show's semi-finals the pressure intensified, with her house hemmed-in by media crews from around the globe.

"It got to the stage where I couldn't even go outside because the media – American television crews too – surrounded the house."

But Susan makes it clear she wasn't forced into singing as on the night of the finals Simon Cowell sent for her, to ask if she was certain she still wanted to perform. She goes on, "Of course I wanted to – it's what I'd waited my whole life for."

After coming second, Susan was taken by ambulance to the Priory, and she expained that, "I hadn't eaten properly for about a week, hadn't slept properly. It was like looking at everything through a glass, and the feeling was one of extreme exhaustion that manifested itself in firing off at everyone."

And Susan definitely isn't bitter from her experience, saying, "A lot of the difficulties I had were purely emotional. I couldn't handle things at that particular time, because I was new to it all. The whole thing just got out of control. It's never happened like that to anyone before and Britain's Got Talent can't take responsibility for that. "

Now Susan is on the up-and-up. Not only has she got a new image, with lippy and glossy hair (despite Sharon Osbourne's comments about her being hit with the ugly stick), she's performing all over the US and boosting TV ratings. Plus, her album, 'I Dreamed A Dream' has had so many advance orders it's outselling Whitney Houston's comeback, and that's ahead of the release date of November 23.

Susan isn't the only star making it big in a transatlantic fashion, other UK exports have also succeeded in the USA. And it's often the celebs you least expect...