An artist that overcame injuries to win over all of the America’s Got Talent judges received Simon Cowell’s golden buzzer.
After an accident that forced Sebastián to perform a solo dance, Cowell, 64, gave the trophy to aerial couple Sebastián and Sonia on the September 3 episode of the popular reality competition series.
The Barcelona-based finalists describe their golden buzzer experience backstage as “wild.”
“Now that it is over, it was well worth the struggle.”
During a dress rehearsal, Sonia broke her elbow, leaving her partner to walk the stage by themselves. Howie Mandel, Heidi Klum, Sofia Vergara, and Judge Cowell all praised his defying gravity.
“I was just taking deep breaths and telling myself to calm down. I had to finish this for the group. Sebastián remembered walking onto the platform by himself, what Cowell called “the definition of courage.”
He claims that both of them were crying before the show started. “I simply tried to focus again on the act, and when I heard the audience, they gave me a lot of power because I was feeling weak and terrified,” he adds. “Even though the days had been long and difficult, I could feel it as soon as the music began and the audience shouted. It gave me so much power.”
Sonia witnessed the performance backstage with AGT host Terry Crews and says it was “amazing” to see her partner perform. “It was hard for me, but all my soul was on the stage with him,” she says. “I said, ‘I’m staying with you’ in feeling.”
“She was with me all the time… it was a duo performed by a solo,” Sebastián says, expressing his tiredness after finishing the song. “I was feeling tired and I didn’t know what was going to happen, but when [Cowell] pressed the button, we started to cry because now it’s like everything was worth it.”
“I wasn’t expecting to do it,” Cowell says backstage of his decision. “But when I saw him after hearing the story, I was stunned. I thought, ‘That’s how you do it.’ He was amazing.”
The other judges were as impressed by Sebastián’s efforts, with Klum, 51, saying he “did his partner proud.” “It’s a genuine success to just say, ‘I’m still going to enter this tournament,’ and perhaps something fantastic will happen. “It did.”
“What they do as a couple is incredibly dangerous, is incredibly beautiful, and the fact that the show must go on, and he made it just as elegant and beautiful as it could be,” said Mandel, whose age is 68. “There was something more emotionally lovely about it.”
The two-night finals takes place on Tuesday, September 17 and ends on Tuesday, September 24. Sonia is excited to play in the finale, but she knows she has a lot of work to do before she is ready. Regarding her demanding rehabilitation regimen, she states, “Every day I push at the gym.” “A great deal of positivism and rehabilitation.”
