NBC's America's Got Talent claims it's trying to find the best talent in the country, but is the show as real as it claims to be? Over the years, like practically every other reality-competition show out there, America's Got Talent has come under fire. The series has faced allegations that the competition is rigged and accusations it's not nearly as genuine as it comes across on the small screen.
The show doesn't always verify contestants' backstories
America's Got Talent ran into a serious fact-checking problem in Season 7 when contestant Timothy Poe's sob story about being a war veteran fell apart. Poe initially told the show that he learned how to sing to help get over a stutter he developed after being hit with a grenade in Afghanistan.
After his audition aired, reports surfaced that his story was false. Even worse, the photo the show used of Poe in Afghanistan turned out to be a picture of another soldier. Poe delivered a tearful apology on a local news station, but he insisted at the time he didn't think he'd lied. Uh, okay.
The show allegedly reserves the right to exaggerate life stories
While Poe's story is the most obvious example of a false contestant backstory, it's possible that other contestants' personal stories have been exaggerated, at least according to excerpts from the book Inside AGT: The Untold Stories of America's Got Talent (via Radar Online). "In exchange for being seen by millions of viewers each week, everyone must agree that producers can trick, exploit and embarrass them—and even depict their personal stories in a manner that 'may be factual or fictional'—and they can't sue for any reason," the book alleges.
The show may pit contestants against one another
Also in Inside AGT, Season 2 runner-up Cas Haley claimed that during the audition process, he and others in his green room were manipulated by producers into getting a young female contestant to cry on camera.
"We were all in the green room, waiting to go out and perform and there was this young girl from Hawaii who was with her mom," he said in the book (via Radar Online). "She went out and auditioned and while she was out there, a producer came back to the holding room and told us, 'OK, she made it, let's give her a big hand when she comes back in here.' So, of course, we all cheered for her when she came through the door and she just burst into tears."
"It turns out she didn't actually make it, they just told us that so we'd cheer and they'd get reaction out of her," Haley said. "That was the first time I realized I couldn't trust these people. [The show is] not what people think. It's all for ratings. That's what they're looking for."
Jokes are allegedly pre-screened
According to Inside AGT (via Radar Online), several of the show's comedic acts may not get to tell the jokes they actually want to when they finally hit the stage.
"Several comedic acts told the book that they were required to submit their jokes to the producers in advance to make sure they cleared network standards and didn't clash with the show's family friendly values," the book claims. Pre-screened and potentially watered-down jokes? Now, that's no laughing matter.
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