Courtney Hadwin, 13, seemed incredibly shy as she entered the America’s Got Talent stage. She told the judges she was a shy schoolgirl from a small English town, spoke softly, and avoided making eye contact. Nobody in the room was prepared for what was going to occur next.
Courtney suddenly changed when the band started playing Otis Redding’s “Hard to Handle.” The shy teenager disappeared, to be replaced by a full-throttle rock vocalist who strode across the stage with a raw, scratchy voice that sounded like it was from the late 1960s and wild, jerky dance motions. In just a few seconds, the audience’s polite interest turned into thunderous applause.
The judges were equally taken aback. When she sang, Simon Cowell described her as “like a lion,” and Howie Mandel likened her to a young Janis Joplin who was first found. Howie slapped the Golden Buzzer, sending Courtney straight to the live shows as gold confetti poured down and the audience went crazy due to the sheer force and uniqueness of her performance.
As evidence that sometimes the quietest child in the room is actually the loudest rock star ready to be let loose, her audition went on to receive tens of millions of views online and is still regarded as one of the most explosive Golden Buzzer moments in AGT history.
