‘AGT’ has a frontrunner to win the competition, and it hasn’t even aired yet!
Elton John has just broken his silence on a heartbreaking story involving one of the new contestants of ‘America’s Got Talent.’ Archie Williams is one of the reality show’s new contestants on tonight’s premiere episode.
Archie’s story is unbelievable. The Baton Rouge native spent the last 36 years locked up in a Louisiana prison, for rape and stabbing that he DID NOT commit.
In the new episode, he sings Elton’s ‘Don’t Let the Sun Go Down On Me,” and it brings the place to tears.
“I was moved to tears when I heard Archie’s story and saw him perform “Don’t Let The Sun Go Down on Me”. The courage and forgiveness shown by him is truly inspiring. The same spirit that the world found so inspiring with Nelson Mandela,” Elton John tweeted after seeing a promo for the new season.
The story is enraging — In 1982, at 22-years-old, Archie Williams was accused of raping and stabbing a white woman in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. At the time, three people testified that Willams at home asleep when the attack occurred, but he says he was economically unable to defend himself.
“As a poor black kid, [he] didn’t have the economic ability to fight the state of Louisiana,” he said in a television interview airing tonight on NBC.
In March 2019, after new technology was introduced, Williams’ fingerprints were submitted into the fingerprint ID system — and it proved that serial rapist, who had other victims in the same neighborhood, was responsible for the crimes.
At the age of 58, Archie was freed from Angola prison.
As for ‘AGT’ Archie says “I watched ‘America’s Got Talent’ in prison and I would visualize myself there I always desired to be on a stage like this, and now I’m here.”
I was moved to tears when I heard Archie’s story and saw him perform "Don’t Let The Sun Go Down on Me". The courage and forgiveness shown by him is truly inspiring. The same spirit that the world found so inspiring with Nelson Mandela. Love, E xx https://t.co/oYxM3IyvWB
— Elton John (@eltonofficial) May 26, 2020
As we said, even before the show starts airing this week, many are saying Archie is a frontrunner to win the competition.
During his audition, Archie brought the entire place to its feet and brought several of the judges to tears.
“I will never, ever listen to that song the same way after you sang that,” Simon Cowell said after hearing him sing. Adding, “This is an audition I will never forget for the whole of my life, Archie.”
Williams’ audition airs tonight at 8 PM when the new season of “America’s Got Talent” premieres on NBC.
