America’s Got Talent is back in the 2025 TV schedule, and the premiere of the milestone Season 20 got off to a bizarre, creamed corn-chugging start before going on to a pair of golden buzzers. Fans don’t have to wait until the next new episode to catch a look at another hopeful performer in the running for $1 million. AGT released a video of a son teaming up with his mom for a cover of Coldplay’s “Viva La Vida,” and Simon Cowell had the most predictable but also most entertaining reaction.
An upcoming episode of Season 20 welcomes 23-year-old Cole Swensen and his mom Judy. It turns out that he didn’t just bring her along for moral support, and the result was a performance that even people who don’t like Coldplay may just love. Take a look:
Talk about a full room full of supporters! Everybody in the audience seemed to agree that Cole Swensen’s performance was worthy of the AGT stage, and his mom even got a “Judy! Judy! Judy!” chant when it initially seemed like Simon Cowell was the one and only judge who didn’t like that Cole brought his mom on stage.
Mel B, who was one of the harsher judges of the premiere, only had good things to say, and Howie Mandel paid a particularly nice compliment since he’s a fan of the original song. For Sofia Vergara, it “was amazing to see a family come together and the love that you guys have between each other.”
So why was Simon the holdout? Well, if you’d never watched America’s Got Talent before, you might have understandably believed that Simon Cowell thought the performance would have been a “really good audition” if Cole had done it on his own. As usual when the American Idol alum starts doling out criticism, the audience began to boo, but he stuck to his guns…
Until the reveal that he thought “it was a great audition” with Cole’s mom participating on her cello, earning lots of cheers and big smiles of relief from mother and son. Cowell has had the habit of delivering bait-and-switch feedback for as long as I’ve been watching him on AGT, and all signs pointed toward him revealing that he actually loved the song. But just because I saw it coming doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy it!
Even though I had a pretty good feeling that Simon was going to elevate his evaluation beyond “good,” Cole and Judy up on the stage in front of thousands of people, with bright stage lights shining down on them, in front of four celebrity judges, with his dream on the line? Of course they’d feel every bit of the disappointment of getting disapproval from Simon, only for the elation of getting his praise.
All in all, maybe I’m just a sucker for the tried and true habits of the various judges on AGT. Simon Cowell certainly deserves credit for the show, even if not everybody enjoys the bait and switch. He recently revealed how he had to lie to NBC execs to get America’s Got Talent made in the first place.
See more acts – and probably golden buzzer winners soon, since Cole and his mom didn’t get one – with new episodes of AGT on NBC Tuesdays starting at 8 p.m. ET. You can also catch the latest episodes streaming with a Peacock subscription next day.
