Celebrity
Man Honors Adoptive Mother In Emotional Tribute
Brandon was born to a teen mom who wasn't ready for a child. And, when he was less than one year old, he was traded for a car. Brandon could have led an extremely dark life— but a woman stepped in to save him...
Britanie Leclair
05.16.18

Brandon Elder, a construction worker from Arab, Alabama, has been through a lot in his life.

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American Idol/USPOTUS
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American Idol/USPOTUS

Born to a teenage mother who wasn’t ready to have a baby, Brandon got the short end of the stick.

“My biological mom had me at a very young age,” he said. “She was 15 or 16 when she had me.”

“I guess she just felt she wasn’t able to give me the life that someone else could.”

When Brandon was just a tiny baby, his mother gave him to a family in Birmingham in exchange for a car.

Although the family might have had good intentions in taking the child, in the end, they weren’t equipped to care for a baby. And, in one of the best things that could have happened to him, Brandon was adopted by a loving woman named Patricia Elder.

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Patricia is the only mom Brandon has ever really known. She adopted him as a single woman and worked hard to ensure he had everything he would need. Brandon reveals his mom often worked 2 jobs just so she’d have enough money to register him for extracurricular activities like the other kids.

Sadly, when Brandon was 14, his mother’s health took a turn for the worse when she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

Although originally doctors managed to kill Patricia’s cancer cells, a few years later, the cancer came back. This time, there was nothing doctors could do to help and Brandon started looking for ways to cope. “My mom got me this guitar for Christmas,” he said. “It was a cheap guitar, and I started playing and I was really terrible at it.” In addition to playing, he’d also practice singing at home in front of his mother.

“She liked it a lot, so I just kept singing.”

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Patricia passed away in April 2016, but her memory is strong.

“Without her,” he said, “there’s no telling where I’d be right now.”

“She provided me with a stable home and worked very hard to get me where I am today.”

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Brandon kept singing and playing guitar after his mother’s death, but, as a construction worker in Arab, he considered it as a hobby— not as a career. He told WAAY 31, “I played a lot of sports in high school, too, and so kind of just didn’t think [singing] was the cool thing to do, so all of my singing was just in the locker room.” He continued to improve, however, and friends and family saw the potential beneath his humility shining through.

“Eventually, some of my friends were like, ‘Hey man, you can kind of sing pretty good,’ and I was like, ‘Okay, cool, whatever.'”

“I thought they were lying to me.”

After failing to convince Brandon of his talents, his girlfriend signed him up for American Idol. On his first appearance, the world took a glimpse of him and completely fell in love.

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ABC/Daily Mail UK
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ABC/Daily Mail UK

Brandon is featured auditioning for American Idol on the episode aired March 20, 2018.

In the video, which has been viewed more than a million times, we see Brandon perform an emotional tribute to the late woman that raised him.

Brandon’s song is an original piece that he wrote especially for Patricia.

“I wrote it as like, ‘Hey this is what she did for me, this why I am who I am today,'” he told WAAY 31.

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In the video, Brandon auditions for Luke Bryant, Katy Perry, and Lionel Richie.

His song addressing “the greatest love that anyone can ever know” instantly touches every person in the room.

The male judges appear unsettled by the performance, with Daily Mail describing them as struggling “to hold together their emotions.”

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ABC/Daily Mail UK
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ABC/Daily Mail UK

Now, I don’t want to ruin the performance for you, but Brandon did mind-blowingly well. He seems to really have impressed Luke who tells him:

“I’m honestly honored. You did something few people can do.”

You wrote a song, magically, from the heart that had two chords. You just slayed it, in my opinion, bud.”

See his incredible performance below!

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