‘Sing, Sarah, sing!’ could be said to sum up Sarah Collins’ approach to life — and it’s what she told herself to calm her emotions when sharing the stage with a global music star. 

It’s nearly two weeks since Sarah found herself performing the hit LeAnn Rimes song How Do I Live alongside the megastar herself.

The surreal moment was the culmination of an extraordinary day during which Sarah was quite literally thrust into the national limelight in the unexpected star segment of the primetime BBC One programme Michael McIntyre’s Big Show. 

Sarah had been with her husband Tom in what she believed was a country music bar in London when the wall fell away and she was stunned to find herself on stage. She was at the famous Theatre Royal in Drury Lane in front of 2,000 people, among them her son Freddie and daughter Lily.

But singing has been Sarah’s passion and comfort throughout her life – and it was there for her once again, helping her compose herself and focus after the shock of seeing LeAnn Rimes join her on stage.

She said: 

"I'm enjoying every moment"

A professional singer, Sarah has performed in theatres, festivals and other venues across the UK and abroad since the age of nine. While recovering from a brain tumour in 2012, she used music as a form of therapy and in 2014 set up a YouTube channel, which now has 45,000 subscribers, singing Motown and Northern Soul classics from her bedroom. She said: 

The show was watched by around seven million people when it aired on January 27, among them Sarah herself. Until then, she’d only had her memories of the day and had no idea how it looked to the audience. She watched it in her living room with Tom, Freddie and Lily, and admits to ‘being nervous and ready to hide behind the sofa’.  

She needn’t have worried. Sarah’s duet with LeAnn Rimes was a triumph. She received a deluge of comments from viewers across the country, among them celebrities such as Zoe Ball, who mentioned the performance on her Breakfast Show and privately messaged Sarah to say she had been ‘phenomenal’. And LeAnn Rimes herself has been in touch several times with messages of encouragement and saying how lovely it had been for her, too.

Sarah said: 

A dream come true

She’s had lots of messages on YouTube and her other social media accounts, and has seen a spike in new followers. She’s also set up a TikTok account. But she'll be continuing to record her YouTube videos and thanked her long-term followers for their support. She said: 

Sarah still can’t quite believe her moment on television with one of the world’s biggest stars was real, and says she hasn’t stopped ‘flying’. She said: 

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Read more:

• Harrogate singer to star on Michael McIntyre's Big Show


• Harrogate singer Sarah Collins: 'What a fantastic surprise and a memory of a lifetime'