This 'AGT' contestant won the Golden Buzzer with no audience — and went on to win the whole season
Over the years, many talented contestants have earned the Golden Buzzer on ‘America’s Got Talent,’ and the studio audience has always shown their love and appreciation for the artists who have managed to earn the coveted honor on the NBC talent competition. However, things were a bit different for ‘AGT’ Season 15 contestant Brandon Leake. Leake received a Golden Buzzer, but no audience was there to cheer him on in the auditorium. When Leake auditioned for ‘AGT’ Season 15, there was no live studio audience due to COVID-19 restrictions. Leake’s season of ‘AGT’ aired in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Leake performed an emotional poem paying tribute to his sister, who died as a baby. According to Today, while reciting the poem, Leake said, “She left Earth to go back home amongst the stars right next to God, but I was left here to manufacture wings out of tears and broken dreams. If this pain and these memories are all that I have left of you, I will never regret these scars from just trying to hold onto you.”
Leake's performance left the judge, Sofia Vergara, wiping tears from her face. Leake’s heartfelt poem struck a chord with Vergara, and she told the spoken word artist, “My brother passed away the same year that your sister passed away. I can feel your pain. I know what this is, I know what it is to have somebody taken from you without you knowing." Simon Cowell also gushed over Leake’s powerful poem and quipped, "What an amazing tribute. There's something very, very special about you. This is a very difficult thing for me to judge. I shouldn't be judging it. I just want to compliment you on what you just did, because it was extraordinary."
When Howie Mandel was asked to share his feedback on Leake’s performance, he said, "It's amazing to me that in Season 15, it's the first time that we're hearing somebody [do] spoken word. There was something more raw in the way it's like singing and talking and just being a human a cappella. No music, no nothing, just a raw heart beating in front of us. We feel your pain, we feel your love." Before hitting the Golden Buzzer, Mandel told Leake, “You moved me to do this.”
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While having a conversation with NBC Insider, Leake stated that not having an audience didn’t make much of a difference to his performance. “In my early stages of doing spoken word, there might've been five, 10 people in the crowd, but there’s a level of professionalism you have to have. You give the same effort of performance and excellence for 10 people as you do for 10,000," Leake said. Throughout his time on 'AGT,' Leake stunned the judging panel with some spectacular performances. Eventually, Leake emerged as the winner of ‘AGT’ Season 15, and he used his winning cash prize to pay off his student loan debt. Since winning, Leake has had a successful career as a published poet, motivational speaker, and entrepreneur.