When Susan Boyle stepped onto the stage of Britain’s Got Talent in 2009, the world expected little—and got everything. With one breathtaking performance of “I

Despite having an estimated £22million in the bank, the singer follows the same routine she fell into long before she became world-famous 16 years ago.

Susan, 64, often hops on the bus before carrying bags of shopping back to her four-bed council house.

Lunch is her favourite scampi and chips that costs £5.05 at a local cafe in her hometown in West Lothian, Scotland.

Karen McClure runs a cafe that was Subo’s favourite karaoke pub until it was converted into a ­restaurant eight years ago.

She said: “Susan still pops in now and again for a roll and square (a square sausage and bun) and a cup of tea.

She always sits in the same chair at the back and she’s happy to chat with me and the other customers.

“A few years back, she ended up joining a French man on his table and she was speaking fluent French.

Global phenomenon

“I couldn’t believe it. She can speak five languages. She told me that she was learning Mandarin at that time.

“She also did a degree a few years back, after she rose to fame. It’s just incredible.

“She goes down to the local music shop and sifts through the records. She seems happy in her life.”

The daughter of a miner and a shorthand typist, Susan shot to fame aged 47 on the 2009 season of BGT.

Revealing that she lived alone with her cat and had never been kissed, no one could have predicted the global phenomenon she would become when she took to the stage in ­Glasgow while wearing a gold dress.

But her rendition of I Dreamed A Dream from Les Miserables became a social media sensation and led to BGT being named the world’s most successful reality TV format by Guinness World Records.

Judge Simon Cowell said: “No one knew who this lady was.

“She was from Scotland, a little village, and she goes on the show and within 48 hours the clip had 500million views. We sold the format to more than 30 countries after that. It was ­unbelievable.”

This year and next are going to be massive for her as she releases new songs and shows off another side to her.

Susan’s debut album, I Dreamed A Dream, became the UK’s best-selling record of all time following its release in 2009.

The unlikely star made eight albums in total and performed for Pope ­Francis at the Vatican in 2019, but her parents never got to toast her success.

Her mum Bridget died aged 91 in 2007 and her dad Patrick passed away in the 1990s.

Last month, Subo announced she has returned to the recording studio for the first time in six years to work on new material.

The comeback, which she has been teasing to her 144,000 followers on Instagram, is remarkable given that she suffered a stroke in 2022 which reportedly affected her speech.

One industry source told The Sun on Sunday: “This year and next are going to be massive for her as she releases new songs and shows off another side to her.

“She’s always wanted to do a ­documentary and let people into her world and she’s so excited for what’s to come.

“She’s told everyone she knows that she’s ready for a biggie.”

However, while the star is thriving, the place she calls home, once a ­bustling mining town, has fallen into decline.

A number of shops have closed and her favourite Jolly Roger pub is no more, meaning she has to travel to the next-biggest town ­outside Edinburgh to sing karaoke.

This could pose a problem for Subo, who still has not passed her driving test despite recently buying a new VW car, according to one source.

And her modest lifestyle is well documented.

After winning BGT, she paid £65,000 to buy the semi-detached, pebble dash council house she grew up in.

In 2010, she also splashed out on a £300,000 five-bed new-build on the other side of town, but she never settled and soon returned to her old family pad.

Four years later, she bought the house next door for £110,000, later ­combining the two properties to ­create her dream home.