The road to the national stage is a long one and it’s often fraught with obstacles.
For some of us, it takes time to find our voice and determine what we really have to say. For others of us, there are material struggles like money or access to the education and skills we need.
For others of us still, there’s a deeper confidence or self-esteem issue that we need to overcome so we feel that we can go for our dreams. And on that last one, sometimes it’s made worse by negative people around us bringing us down.
That was definitely the case for one recent performer on America’s Got Talent.
The boy we’re talking about is Tyler Butler-Figueroa, who is only 11 years old.
As he walks out and introduces himself to the judges, Julianna Hough comments immediately that she loves his light up shoes! Everyone notices that he has a violin in his hands and they ask him how he first got interested in playing that instrument.
For his part, Butler-Figueroa answers that he first started with violin when he was only seven and a half, as a response to getting bullied in school.
As it turns out, he was being bullied because he was diagnosed with cancer and almost died.
Needless to say, battling cancer is one of the hardest things that anyone can do—and having to defend yourself from bullies during it makes it even worse.
As Butler-Figueroa explains, he is from North Carolina and was struggling with leukemia. For those who don’t know, leukemia is a serious disease which is a cancer of the blood.
He started chemotherapy and lost all of his hair. After that, he began to look different at school and kids started to move away from him. One day, he saw that there were free violin lessons after school for anyone who wanted to do it.
Although it seemed strange, learning to play the violin seemed to give him a new hope and a new love for life.
After hearing his story, everyone in the crowd is excited to see what he’ll do.
As he starts the performance, he encourages everyone in the crowd to start clapping to get the energy up. After that, he starts playing the violin while dancing around with a ton of energy! He’s clearly practiced a ton to have this kind of control and movement while he’s playing.
It’s definitely hard to play the violin well no matter what… but moving around this much makes it very challenging. After a few moments, it becomes clear that he’s playing “Stronger” by Kelly Clarkson, and the whole crowd connects with it.
When it’s all over, the judges and the crowd rise to their feet to give him a standing ovation.
Though there have been plenty of inspiring stories on America’s Got Talent over the years, this one is particularly touching.
After it’s all over, the judges give him great feedback and everybody is in tears by the end of it all. Once everyone has a chance to compliment him, Simon Cowell tells the crowd that he wants to send a loud message to the bullies.
With that, he hits the Golden Buzzer and the whole crowd goes wild! Though the moment shocked and surprised everyone, after seeing Butler-Figueroa’s performance, nobody could’ve deserved it more.
Congratulations to Tyler on his amazing violin skills and on his incredible audition! Check out the full performance below:
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