Susan Boyle: I Have Asperger's

After a lifetime of being told she suffered brain damage, reclusive Scottish singing sensation Susan Boyle finally sought out a specialist and came away with an entirely different diagnosis: Asperger's syndrome. "It was the wrong diagnosis when I was a kid," she tells the Observer. "I was told I had brain damage. I always knew it was an unfair label. Now I have a clearer understanding of what's wrong and I feel relieved and a bit more relaxed about myself." She was diagnosed a year ago, but has kept it secret until now.

Boyle had trouble in school as a child, and says she was told she'd suffered oxygen deprivation during her birth. Of Asperger's, she says, "it will not make any difference to my life. It's just a condition that I have to live with and work through," she says, though she adds, "I think people will treat me better because they will have a much greater understanding of who I am and why I do the things I do." (More Susan Boyle stories.)