We all have dreams. For Madison Taylor Baez, known as Maddie for short, getting the opportunity to sing on the America’s Got Talent stage is her big dream.
In a cool behind-the-scenes look, you get to see production staff place one of their contestants — in this case, it’s 11-year-old Maddie — into the audience to try to catch the judges off-guard with an impromptu audition.
“This has been her dream since she was 4 years old,” Maddie’s dad tells Terry Crews. He shares that he has always encouraged his daughter to pursue her singing and assured her that one day she would make it on AGT.
When Maddie coyly raises her hand to volunteer during a break in production and she begins to sing, you’re suddenly met with a super-powerful voice that almost doesn’t match up with her tiny body during her rendition of “Amazing Grace.”
With the judges sitting in their seats still facing the stage, Howie Mandell quickly turns around and tells fellow judges Heidi Klum and Sofía Vergara to check her out as well. AGT judge Simon Cowell is in the middle of making his way back to his seat, and even he stops to marvel at her singing voice.
As the audience erupts in cheers, Maddie is escorted out of her seat, and Simon stops to shake her hand and asks if it’s OK if she makes her way up to the stage to properly talk to them.
“We do ask people in the breaks if they’d like to sing a song,” Simon explains to the crowd. “And I was literally just coming back in and I heard this voice thinking, ‘who the hell is that?’”
To see Maddie’s full performance on America’s Got Talent, check out the video.
