Alex Rivers (via Instagram) | July 16, 2025
My journey on America’s Got Talent Season 17. Firstly, I actually almost DIDN’T audition. The reason I decided to was bc I kept seeing the billboards in Las Vegas about it & I thought it was a sign. I was pretty exhausted in the heat from just busking every day & wanted my life to change SO BAD. I remember them rejecting me at an open call a few years prior where I had waited 10 hours to get in front of a producer. That affected my self esteem negatively for YEARS.
But this time it was a Zoom call because of the pandemic so I would be scheduled and not have to wait. Steve Harvey in an interview said that the only way something can be truly forever out of reach is if you don’t even try, then there’s NO way under the sun it can happen. So I booked the LAST day of the LAST time slot for the Zoom call to have time to cancel it.
For AGT you have to get through rounds of producers before doing a judges audition. I passed two producer rounds on Zoom and then I was flown out to audition a 3rd time in Pasadena CA; for the judges. You can’t undo TV so I practiced a ton in my hotel room. I was comfortable talking to a camera though bc I like to yap. When I got to the set I recognized the producer filming me. He was the one that rejected my in-person producer audition years prior! I didn’t say anything though obviously and he probably wouldn’t even have remembered who I was.
Anyway, the buzzers are super loud and you can hear them from far away in the auditorium. Eventually it was my turn and I think I did good but I felt like a deer in headlights. Everyone asks me if Simon was mean but he was nice and went along with my banter. When he sent me home over my song choice I was crushed, but I did come back the next day, & performed my new song. That is the part that aired. I was alot more confident when I came back to the stage cause I stopped taking it so seriously and had fun with it. In the video you can see me making joke after joke but the humor was kind of a way to cope and put me more at ease before playing so I’m glad everyone laughed. I got all YESSES and a standing ovation! 2022
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Alex Rivers is a native of Las Vegas and busked on The Strip for several years. In 2022 he released a documentary titled A Day In the Life of A Las Vegas Street Performer. That same year, he successfully auditioned for America’s Got Talent Season 17 where his performances were aired for a national audience.
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