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George proposed to her??!!

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Dexterdidit
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George proposed to her??!! Empty George proposed to her??!!

Post by Katiedot Mon 06 Dec 2010, 10:46

Just for fun

From The Daily Mail

By Kathryn Knight
Last updated at 1:58 PM on 5th December 2010

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In Korea, she's a superstar. In China, she's about to sing to 400 million. Oh, and George Clooney's proposed to her. So why hasn't Britain recognised ten-year-old Connie's true talent?

Most parents will be wearily familiar with the frantic juggling required to maintain the schedule of the average modern miss.

Between their ten-year-old daughter’s netball practice and drama club and choir commitments, not to mention her schooling, Sharon and Gavin Talbot are forever shuttling back and forth from their home in Birmingham trying to keep up.

Start quality: It was her first TV appearance on the first season of Britain's Got Talent where Connie Talbot charmed Simon Cowell

There are a few other arrangements, however, that aren’t quite so typical. Like the trip to Korea for an engagement at the G20 summit last month, and an appointment with the 400 million or so viewers of national state television in China.

Not to mention an appearance on chat show queen Oprah Winfrey’s talk show and the giant charity bash in Germany that ended with a marriage proposal from George Clooney.

But then ten-year-old Connie Talbot is quite the international singing sensation, in demand all over the world.

She’s had more than 300 million hits on YouTube and in the Far East, in particular, she’s something of an icon. Japan, Taiwan, Korea, China, Brazil, Mexico and the U.S. — you name it, Connie’s a star there.

In fact Connie is in huge demand across the globe — everywhere, that is, apart from her native Britain. Here, the closest thing she has got to a bit of celebrity in recent years is switching on the Christmas lights in the Midlands town of Wednesbury, where her mum was born.

It’s an odd state of affairs, not to mention a rather instructive illustration of the random nature of modern celebrity. Certainly, readers with reasonable memories may recall that for a time Connie was going to be the next big thing here too.

As a gap-toothed six-year-old, she enchanted the public - and Simon Cowell - throughout the first series of Britain’s Got Talent in 2007 with her pitch-perfect rendition of Over The Rainbow.

Charmed: Simon Cowell spotted Connie's talent immediately, but he hasn't been in touch since his label rejected her because of her young age. Heavily tipped to win the competition and the £100,000 prize, she was pipped to second place by mobile phone salesman turned opera singer Paul Potts.

Still, it was assumed that Connie would do just fine. Cowell promised to make her a £1 million-a-year star anyway, with a pledge to sign her to his record label, Syco.
Such was the avalanche of attention that ensued that for the first few weeks after the competition, her parents had to hire a bodyguard to look after her when she went out in public.

‘It was crazy,’ Sharon recalls now. ‘We had no idea that it would happen. We had people standing outside the house and the phone ringing off
the hook.’

Just two months later, however, Connie’s dreams were shattered when Cowell’s music label Sony BMG decided she was too young for a recording career. Her hastily recorded album, Over The Rainbow, seemed destined to languish unreleased until, undeterred, Connie’s parents signed her to a new recording label.

Alas, that didn’t work out either. Just a few months later, the label’s distribution company went into liquidation, and Connie’s albums ended up stuck in a warehouse, where they may languish to this day. So few copies were sold here that her parents have no idea what the figures are. It seemed Connie’s 15 minutes of fame were well and truly up.
But not quite. For overseas it was becoming a different story: remade and distributed by record labels in Asia and the U.S., Connie’s album sold hundreds of thousands of copies (in Taiwan, it outsold Mariah Carey). And from there, things have spiralled in a most peculiar way.

Maybe it’s the goofy smile, maybe it’s the sweet fringe, but pretty much the moment she steps off these shores, Connie is now quite the superstar, ferried by limousine from five-star hotel to concert or charity engagement with all the fuss afforded to a Mariah Carey, a Whitney Houston or a Madonna.

Take last month, which saw Connie and her mother ensconced in a luxury hotel in Seoul, where Connie opened the G20 summit of world leaders at a special concert.
‘Connie’s room was so big it had a swimming pool in it. Can you imagine?’ says her mum.

The requests for Connie come flooding in from all over the world almost every day — and the person dealing with them is not Simon Cowell, Dark Lord of Celebrity, but Sharon
‘We couldn’t believe it. Everyone was so nice. After she sang, the South Korean president presented her with a special plaque and thanked her. He said she had a beautiful voice.’

In the New Year it’s China, where Connie will be flown business class by the leading network television channel to sing as part of the televised Chinese New Year celebrations.
‘About 400 million people will watch it,’ says 41-year-old Sharon.

‘It’s unbelievable, really. But they go crazy for her all over the Far East — she’s a proper celebrity and gets recognised all the time. If she’s out in public she gets people rushing up to her saying: “I love you Connie.”

‘Sometimes we have to make a bit of a sharp exit because people want to touch her.
It’s lovely, really. Whenever we’re over there, people tell us they feel like Connie is a bridge between East and West.’

Little star: Connie and her mother Sharon travel all over the world so the ten-year-old can perform to her legion of fans. For new year, she's due to sing for 400 million people in China, yet in the UK, she's largely still unknown

The requests for Connie come flooding in from all over the world almost every day — and the person dealing with them is not Simon Cowell, Dark Lord of Celebrity, but Sharon. For while there are record labels representing Connie in the Far East, at the moment she has no manager and no official representation in Britain.

Today, Team Connie is basically Sharon, husband Gavin, a property maintenance engineer, and Connie’s older sister Molly, 15, and 17-year-old brother, Josh. ‘I don’t really like being called her manager because I’m her mum and that’s a far more important job. But yes, I suppose I am her manager as well,’ says Sharon.

Given her daughter’s immense commercial appeal abroad, it seems a puzzling state of affairs, although the Talbots seem to take the lack of interest over here on the chin.

‘It’s just one of those things, isn’t it?’ says 43-year-old Gavin. ‘We had a bit of bad luck with what happened with the distribution company and while we have got people interested in working with Connie now, we are very aware of trying to ensure what’s best for her. But of course we’d love to have a record deal in Britain.’

Connie’s brush with stardom in the UK started when she begged her parents to let her enter Britain’s Got Talent after seeing a television advert.

While her parents knew she had a nice voice, they thought little more about it, assuming it would be a fun day out if nothing else. But from the moment she stepped on stage and started to sing, their daughter entranced the audience — and Mr
Cowell. ‘You’re pure magic,’ he said.

Connie had set her heart on working with Simon, although it wasn’t to be, and since being told that Syco would not work with her they have heard nothing from him.

Connie was quite upset at the time although today, perched on her mother’s knee and still wearing her smart bottle-green primary school uniform — and with that gap-toothed smile replaced by proper grown up teeth — she seems remarkably unfazed.
‘It’s sad because I liked him a lot and he was really nice to me,’ says Connie.

Connie had set her heart on working with Simon, although it wasn’t to be, and since being told that Syco would not work with her they have heard nothing from him. In some ways too, as Sharon points out, the absence of a huge hullabaloo about her in Britain has allowed Connie to adjust to a life of professional singing engagements more gradually without the usual issues associated with child stardom.

‘She was very young when she did Britain’s Got Talent and maybe it would have been too much,’ says Sharon. ‘This way, she still has a relatively normal life — even with her time out of school she’s kept up with her year, and she does drama club and plays netball and goes to sleepovers with her friends.

‘While it would be lovely for her talent to be recognised over here, at the same time the fact she isn’t means we still can just get on with our lives without too much fuss.’

It must be said that the whole family seem remarkably well adjusted. Their house is homely and welcoming, the children polite, charming and friendly, and were it not for the occasional clue as to Connie’s global celebrity — a plaque here, a picture of Oprah Winfrey there — you would have little idea of her achievements.

Certainly, there are no outward trappings of wealth, and while the ­Talbots are reluctant to be drawn into the exact details of Connie’s earnings, they insist that reports of her raking in sums in excess of £1 million are a little wide of the mark.

‘It’s nowhere near that,’ Sharon says firmly. ‘Not even hundreds of thousands. We’re certainly not living off Connie’s money. We’ve put most of her earnings aside in a trust fund and some are invested.’

Growing up: Now aged ten, Connie manages to combine her worldwide singing commitments with her busy school schedule

Connie's family did move from their old home in Walsall to a new four- bedroom property — complete with specially designed recording studio in the back — in the more affluent Birmingham suburb of Streetly last year, but they still have a mortgage, and Gavin continues to work.

Connie, meanwhile, gets the same £10-a-week pocket money as her schoolfriends who are, it turns out, equally ambivalent about her celebrity status overseas. ‘I tell them when I’ve been somewhere interesting, but I don’t really talk about my singing with my friends,’ says Connie.

Still, it’s not every little girl who mixes a spot in the school choir with international engagements. Aside from a whole host of engagements in the Far East, she has been a special guest at a gala banquet for Nelson Mandela and dueted with Whitney Houston in Germany.

Earlier this year, she even secured a marriage proposal from George Clooney after performing on the German equivalent of Children In Need.

‘Connie was introduced to him and he asked if she was ­married. She said no and he said well, could she do him the honour,’ says ­Sharon. (Connie, for the record, was impressed but not that impressed. ‘He was nice. But he’s a bit old,’ she says.)


Connie, meanwhile, gets the same £10-a-week pocket money as her schoolfriends who are, it turns out, equally ambivalent about her celebrity status overseas
Earlier in the year, meanwhile, the Talbots received an offer from the Saudi royal family for Connie to sing at a private engagement. ‘It was a name-your-price affair, but I didn’t feel comfortable with it and so I said no,’ says Sharon.

Connie again seems unperturbed. ‘I didn’t mind, Mum,’ she says.

This must surely, you think, be enough to pique Mr Cowell’s interest once more. The Talbots would like nothing more and even Connie confesses to dreaming that she might hear from him again.
‘It would be really nice if he gets in touch,’ she says. ‘I still like him a lot.’
Sharon puts it more firmly. ‘I think she deserves recognition here. She’s been a fantastic little ambassador for this country and we’re terribly proud of her.’
Of course, whether her homeland can take her to its heart again remains to be seen. But we need to do it quickly, because there’s a chance Connie might not be a singer for ever.
‘It’d be nice to be a singer, but maybe I’d like to be something else,’ she says. ‘Something like a doctor.’

She may be a global superstar, but Connie Talbot, it seems, has got her little feet planted firmly on the ground.

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Post by Dexterdidit Mon 06 Dec 2010, 11:07

LOL George would ask if he already knew it would be a no. Great story how many girls can say they had turned down a proposal by George. Smart girl! She sounds great I hope things work out for her and she and her family stay centred. I don't think the world needs anymore Lohans! rendeer

Cheers

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Post by Lighterside Mon 06 Dec 2010, 14:01

What a little darling she is, and I agree Dexterdidit...George only asked because he knew the answer.

Memo to Betty: So sorry darling, you have to be underage to get a marriage proposal from George! HoHoHo! santa
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Post by Katiedot Mon 06 Dec 2010, 14:10

Hah! I thought you had to be nearly underage just to date him! (meow!)
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Post by Guest Mon 06 Dec 2010, 14:18

Maybe he REALLY meant the proposal. Because he figures when she's old enough to marry him, he'll be ready to commit to living with the same woman for the rest of his life. LOL

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Post by Henway Wed 08 Dec 2010, 13:57

So he was in Germany last year for a charity event?

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Post by melbert Thu 09 Dec 2010, 01:03

I thought it was Christmas time 08, after he had broken up with Sarah. Didn't he have the Dennis Farina (I think that's how you spell it) mustache then?
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Post by ManhattanMaven Thu 09 Dec 2010, 04:23

It was while he was filming Goats. They had his hairline shaved back and he had that weird moustache...LOL! He went to London first for a charity dinner for Not On Our Watch and then to Germany for that charity event. I love you

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