UPDATE: Phuket’s Nene Royal earns Golden Buzzer and reaches the America’s Got Talent finals
The 16-year-old Phuket singer and guitarist received a Golden Buzzer from judge Mel B during the second live quarter-final, sending her directly to the America’s Got Talent Season 21 finals.
Nene Royal, a 16-year-old singer and guitarist from Phuket, has advanced directly to the finals of America’s Got Talent Season 21 (2026) after receiving a Golden Buzzer from judge Mel B during the second live quarter-final.
According to The Phuket Express, Royal performed Soundgarden’s “Black Hole Sun” during the quarter-final. Mel B awarded the Golden Buzzer, sending Royal directly to the finals and bypassing the usual semi-final elimination rounds.
The quarter-finalists were divided into four groups of 11, with Royal in the second group among the 44 acts remaining in the competition. Her group was scheduled to perform on NBC in the United States at 8pm US Eastern Time on Tuesday 25 August, corresponding to about 7am in Thailand on Wednesday 26 August.
Before the quarter-final, the programme’s voting rules allowed people aged 16 or over who were in one of the 50 US states or Puerto Rico to vote through the NBC voting website, the official America’s Got Talent app or the programme’s official TikTok account. Each channel allowed up to 10 votes per contestant in each round. Viewers in Thailand could not vote directly, votes submitted using a VPN or other location-changing software would be discarded, and TikTok accounts had to be public with one contestant name per comment on an official voting post.
Royal, identified in Thai media as Praew–Rattikant Amloy, previously received four “Yes” votes from the judges after singing and playing guitar on “Zombie” by The Cranberries during her audition. She then performed Muse’s “Hysteria” in the Judges’ Callbacks before being selected for the live quarter-finals.
