Susan Boyle beat bullies with singing

Susan Boyle overcame bullies with her singing.

The Scottish music sensation was tormented throughout her childhood by other pupils at school because she was "different".

But Susan - who suffered from learning difficulties because she was starved of oxygen during her birth - found peace through her love of music.

She said: "My singing silenced the bullies, but better than that it silenced the demons inside of me. When you've been jeered at, told to shut up, sit still, stop being silly, there's noise constantly rolling around your head. When I was singing it was peaceful. It gave me a new identity. Instead of being 'That Susan Boyle - do you remember she was a bit odd at school?' I became Susan Boyle - did you know she can really sing?' "

Susan - who shot to fame on Simon Cowell's TV show 'Britain's Got Talent' - says the worst incident was when one of the most spiteful bullies stubbed out a lit cigarette on her, leaving her completely traumatised.

In her new book 'The Woman I Was Born to Be', she recalled: "One afternoon a gang of girls and boys started chasing me. I set off, trying to get a head start, running as fast as I could . but they caught up with me. They grabbed my bag and swung me round so I toppled down a bank towards a stream, landing on my face in a patch of nettles. The ringleader stepped forward, took a cigarette from her lips and stubbed it through the back of my blazer. The perfect round hole seemed to sum it up, all I was good for was stubbing out a cigarette. I was of no use to anyone."

The 49-year-old singer still occasionally has moments of doubt about herself, which she believes is a result of her unhappy childhood, but is happy with her achievements.

She said: "I still have my moments of doubt, doesn't everybody? If my story means anything, it is that people are very often too quick to judge a person by the way they look or the quirks of their behaviour."