Was Susan Boyle done in by wrong phone numbers?

London: Singing sensation Susan Boyle's loss in the finals of Britain's Got Talent came as a shock to everyone and now reports have emerged that the upset may have been caused by wrong telephone voting numbers on YouTube.

The Scottish singer was a favourite to win the final last Saturday but lost to the dance group Diversity by a margin of just 4.7 per cent in one of the biggest upsets on a reality show.

The defeat has taken a toll over Boyle's health as the singer had to be admitted to London's Priory clinic after suffering an emotional meltdown.

The fans of the 48-year-old singer have complained that just after Boyle's performance, YouTube was re-running clips of the performance with voting numbers that belonged to her rivals, the Daily Mail reported.

And the viewers believe that what first looked like a simple error might have been an attempt to get Boyle's fans to vote for her competitors.

The last two digits of the Scottish singer's voting number on YouTube had been changed from the correct '08' to either '07' or '09' which were the numbers for dance group Diversity and singer Shaun Smith, Boyle's closest rivals on the show.

Diversity won with just 4.7 per cent more votes than the singer and now it seems possible that the singer lost because of the wrong numbers.

The unofficial clips have been removed from the site now and it has emerged that ITV allowed the clips to remain on the website to increase advertising ratings.

Boyle had become a huge hit on the website after over 100 million across the world logged on to watch her audition song I Dreamed a Dream, the newspaper said.

However, a spokesperson for the channel has refuted claims that Boyle's loss had anything to do with the wrong telephone numbers on YouTube.

"The voting lines for the finalists were clearly displayed and read out after each act had performed in the final, with further calls to action for all of the acts at four further points in the evening.

"We are satisfied viewers had ample opportunity to know which voting numbers to call. We are not responsible for any phone numbers which may have been posted on unofficial websites," the spokesperson said.