Susan Boyle 2.0: Debate Rages but Dye Is Cast

LONDON, April 24 -- Whether she should have or shouldn't have, she did.

Susan Boyle has dyed and cut her frizzy, graying locks and thinned her famous bushy eyebrows, a $57 sprucing-up that has become huge news in Britain.

On Wednesday at the Miss Toner salon, with the blinds pulled down to give the unlikely global celebrity a little privacy, Boyle got a haircut, semi-permanent color rinse and eyebrow shaping, according to a receptionist at the salon in Whitburn, Scotland.

Since she appeared April 11 on the television show "Britain's Got Talent," her decidedly unglamorous looks have become a subject of global debate.

Many of her fans urged her not to let stylists change her look, while others advised that she pay more attention to her appearance.

The Sun, the best-selling British tabloid, had dubbed her "Hairy Angel" but today referred to her as "Brunette's Got Talent."

"I assure you it's not a major makeover," John Boyle, her brother, said in a telephone interview. "She is still the same Susan."

As of Tuesday, Boyle's audition video posted on YouTube and other video-sharing sites had generated more than 116 million views, according to Visible Measures, a firm that tracks Internet video trends.

Boyle's performance of "I Dreamed a Dream" from the musical "Les Misérables" will probably be the fastest-growing video of all time, said Matt Cutler, head of analytics at Visible Measures.

Boyle's showstopping success has sparked a worldwide argument about the nature of beauty and celebrity. Her fans call her a refreshing change from the parade of airbrushed celebrities on the airwaves.

Others have said that there's nothing wrong with maximizing your looks, and that Boyle really ought to let the stylists release her inner princess. Online sites have run surveys and blogs about whether she should get a makeover. DailyMakeover.com reported that 75 percent said yes and that it would not "detract from who she is." Some online commentators had speculated that talent-show host Simon Cowell might forbid a makeover because it could kill the Golden Goose; the unvarnished Boyle is the biggest thing ever to happen to his TV show.

"She is a grown woman. She can get a haircut," said Sara Lee, a publicist working for the show. But, she noted, "the public has fallen in love with her just as she is."

Boyle said last weekend that she had no interest in a makeover. "No, no, no," she said.

But with her next TV appearance not until the end of May, when auditions end and the live contest begins, she apparently wanted a bit of change.

Her fan mail continues to pile up, but there are signs that Boyle fatigue might be setting in, at least for some.

Thursday night on that barometer of American social trends, the animated television show "South Park," the character Ike wrote an expletive-laced note to his parents saying that if one more person mentioned Susan Boyle to him, he would "puke." He was so fed up, he said, that he was running away to Somalia to become a pirate.

Staff writer Jose Antonio Vargas contributed to this report from Washington.