America’s Got Talent
Reality talent show America’s Got Talent aka AGT (2006-current) is filling up e.tv screens now that local version SA’s Got Talent (2009-current) has wrapped its seventh season. And while we’re not going to spill the beans on the talent coming your way, we will let you in on a few AGT secrets, like…
It was planned as the second show 1
in the Got Talent TV franchise, but Britain’s Got Talent (2006-current) was held back a year after host Paul O’Grady split with parent network ITV.
AGT’s original grand prize was a 2
live-performance show in a Vegas casino, but that changed due to public concern of minors working in casinos. Instead, 11-year-old season 1 singing winner Bianca Ryan won $1 million.
But the prize isn’t paid in one go – 3
it’s paid out over 40 years! That’s $25 000 (R346 000) per year.
While talent guru Simon Cowell 4
created the Got Talent franchise, the 57-year-old Brit’s contracts with other reality talent shows stopped him from being an AGT judge. He has however joined as a judge for seasons 11 and 12 (2016 and 2017).
As successful as it’s been, AGT has 5
won none of the 12 awards that it’s been nominated for to date.
And in 2013, tell-all book Inside 6
AGT: The Untold Stories Of America’s Got Talent, season 2 (2007) runnerup Cas Haley revealed: “There was this young girl and while she was auditioning, a producer told us, ‘She made it, let’s give her a hand when she walks in.’ So we cheered when she came through the door and she burst into tears. She didn’t actually make it. They wanted a reaction from her. That was when I realised I couldn’t trust these people.”