Autistic Singer Lavender Darcangelo Makes 'AGT' Finale With a Sweet Love Song Dedicated to Boyfriend
On America's Got Talent's first Live Show performances on Tuesday night, Heidi Klum’s Golden Buzzer Lavender Darcangelo, who is blind and autistic, continued to be, well, golden. She closed the show with a performance of Foreigner’s "I Wanna Know What Love Is,” which she told Parade backstage after the performance that she dedicated to her boyfriend, who is also on the spectrum -- and she shone.
Growing up Lavender had a lot of trust issues and felt unloved, so when her boyfriend began showing her gestures of love, she says it was hard for her to accept because it was scary.
“I knew that I was loved,” explains Lavender, who was adopted later in life by Wil Darcangelo and his husband, Jamie. “I think it was more like people wanted to include me in things, but they didn't know how because of my disability so they were afraid of doing the wrong thing, especially in school. It wasn't like I was bullied. It was more like people didn't know how, so I didn't have the best social life in school.”
When her boyfriend came into her life, one of the gestures he made was to introduce her to movies. That may not sound like much, but for Lavender it was a big deal.
“I have a hard time with movies,” she says. “He would break down the information, and really stop and pause the movie and explain everything even if it would take five hours for a 2-hour movie. The first time he did that, I actually bawled my eyes out because I didn't know what that was like as a person who was blind and autistic.”
Photo by: Trae Patton/NBC
So, on Tuesday night, Lavender was able to publicly demonstrate the love she has for him with a no-nerves performance even though being Heidi’s Golden Buzzer puts a little additional pressure on her -- but not in a bad way.
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“It's just because when I auditioned for AGT, it was the first time I had sung in three years because back in 2019, a video of me went viral and I was taking on so many performances because of that viral video, I burnt out and I had to stop,” she shares. “I was taking on so many things and doing so many shows, and so it's only a little bit pressuring, because I'm afraid of pushing myself to the limits because as much as I like to sing, I am all about balance.”
Now that Lavender has made it through to the AGT finale, she has one more performance to win over America to earn the $1 million and the title.
“I have a feeling in mind,” she says of her next appearance. “I don't really have much of a song in mind as much as I have a feeling in mind that I want to express to the world. I just want the world to know: Guess what? The world was never against you. It was always waiting for you. It was just your beliefs that made you believe that the world was against you.
As for the $1 million prize, if she wins, she already has plans for it and they are very generous ones.
Photo by: Trae Patton/NBC
“The first thing I would do with the million dollars would be a school that I would have thrived in because I didn't do well in school at all. It would start off with play, and then let's say a kid is interested in some sort of rock that he finds on the ground, and then he naturally wants to learn a lot about geology and stuff, and then he figures out that in order to learn that he has to learn how to read, and so naturally, he wants to learn how to read. So, classes would be formed by kids’ natural curiosity rather than telling them, 'Oh, you have to read now.' It wouldn't be that they never learn how to read, it would be when something would inspire them to want to learn how to read. Like if they see a box of cereal lying around, they’re, 'Oh, I wonder what that is. I want to eat that, but I don't know what that says.'”
America’s Got Talent returns next Tuesday at 8 p.m. ET/PT on NBC when the next group of 11 artists will perform in hopes of making the AGT finale.
Next, America’s Got Talent Reveals the 55 Acts Set to Perform on Season 18’s Live Shows