Hard of hearing comedian Hayden Kristal auditions on “America’s Got Talent”
A hard of hearing comedian named Hayden Kristal was one of the performers who auditioned on the new and 17th season of NBC’s “America’s Got Talent.” Kristal’s pronouns are they/them/theirs.
Kristal was featured on the third set of auditions that aired on Tuesday night.
Kristal is the only deaf person in their family. On the stage, Kristal used both ASL and spoken voice. On the AGT set, Kristal had an ASL interpreter present.
During their comedy routine, Kristal said they dual majored in college, studying ASL and zoo-keeping. Kristal said it was nice to have both degrees, but that Koko the sign language gorilla died like, four years ago, so their only chance of success is comedy. The audience laughed at that joke.
Kristal said they actually did apply to work in the Koko Foundation (formally called the Gorilla Foundation) when they were in college, but was rejected because they had hearing loss. The audience booed at this.
Kristal said the foundation said “I was a liability issue because if the gorilla were to sneak up on me, I would not be able to hear it.”
Kristal then asked the audience “full of hearing people,” what “y’all gonna do different if a gorilla sneaks up on you?” The audience laughed at this.
Kristal said it was ridiculous and that the only difference is that hearing people would “die scared,” that’s it. The audience laughed and cheered.
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Judge Simon Cowell asked if the Koko story was true. Kristal said, “yes.” Simon said that makes Kristal’s performance even better.
All three judges voted “Yes” to have Kristal advance into the next round. Kristal told the show’s host, Terry Crews, after the vote that they felt “validation.”
You can follow Kristal on Twitter and Instagram @HaydenKristal.
An article on SK POP said Kristal is based in Colorado. Kristal tweeted that they don’t know if they will be invited back for the live shows yet and that the judges will go into deliberations soon.
AGT had a successful deaf contestant in the past — Mandy Harvey, a singer who finished in fourth place on the show’s twelfth season in 2017.
https://www.goldderby.com/article/2022/americas-got-talent-season-17-episode-3-recap-live-blog/