It’s quite natural to stop and look in the rearview mirror as you grow older – and Susan Boyle can certainly look back on a remarkable life.

In 2008, the unemployed charity worker lived alone with her cat, Pebbles, and wanted to see if she could make it in show business. After performing I Dreamed a Dream from Les Misérables in front of Simon Cowell and the rest of Britain’s Got Talent judges, the 47-year-old became a star overnight.

Unlike many other celebrities, she has never flashed her cash; the humble singer still lives in her childhood home in Blackburn, Scotland.

She purchased the modest house in 2010.

”It’s best to be grounded and with your roots. It keeps you grounded and prevents you from saying things maybe you shouldn’t say,” she told OK!.

Susan Boyle was born on April 1, 1961. Her parents – Patrick Boyle, a miner, WWII veteran, and singer, and Bridget, a shorthand typist – were both immigrants from County Donegal, Ireland. Boyle grew up as the youngest of four brothers and six sisters.

The family lived in a council house in West Lothian, Scotland. Still to this day, Susan lives in that house.

She could have done anything, gone anywhere, bought a mansion in Beverly Hills, but instead, she returned to her childhood home, a four-bedroom ex-council house in Blackburn, Scotland, bought it, and turned it into the home of her dreams.

Upstairs Susan shows us what used to be the room she once shared with her two sisters which then became hers after her sisters left home. She recalls the record player that used to sit in the corner and how she was a huge fan of The Osmonds.

Her father died in the 1990s by which time her brothers and sisters had all left home. Susan stayed at home and cared for her elderly mother until her death in 2007 so the household’s precious memories for the superstar.

“Some people seem surprised that I choose to stay in my family home. Why shouldn’t I? I feel Mum is still here and there are so many good memories … I’ve spent most of my life in this house and I won’t move now, because I feel it’s part of my new history,” she said.