‘America’s Got Talent’ Golden Buzzer Kodi Lee Returns to the Stage
NBC Reading Time: 3 minutes
Kodi Lee is known as Gabrielle Union’s Golden Buzzer in season 14 of America’s Got Talent. This blind and autistic singer defies the odds when he sits behind his grand piano. This extraordinary performer has gone on to do plenty since winning the AGT title, and now he’s returning to where it all began.
Kodi was born with optic nerve hypoplasia and had a life saving surgery at only five days old. Soon after, he was diagnosed with autism. He is also blind, but these factors don’t take away from his talent. He’s able to perform because he has an audio-photographic memory. He is able to recall a song after only hearing it once. There are only approximately 25 people in the world today who possess his extraordinary abilities.
He was 22 years-old at the time of his America’s Got Talent audition and was brought on stage by his mom, Tina Lee. Kodi definitely did not disappoint in his audition. This has to be the most epic moment in Got Talent history.
From there, Kodi went on to win season 14 of AGT. He received a $1 million prize and a headlining show in Las Vegas. He is the first blind person and the first known autistic person to win the show.
During his Vegas concerts, Kodi signed to Simon Cowell’s record label Syco as well as Columbia records.
He then went on to do different performances at events like Liberty University‘s 2019 graduation ceremony, The 2019 Autism Awareness Gala, and even some virtual concerts come early 2020.
Kodi Lee Shares Life on Social Media
Lee has 387,000 followers on Instagram and 381,000 subscribers on YouTube. His Instagram is filled with posts about daily life, parody songs, and a full virtual concert. His YouTube is filled with singing, vlogs and other fun events.
He also has recently started a TikTok and has gained over 866,000 followers. He posts fun videos here like this one of him getting a haircut before his upcoming AGT appearance.
On a video titled “Channel Update” from over a year ago his brother talks about how Kodi has been working on an album. Although I haven’t seen any updates about it recently, I can’t wait until it comes out.
But that’s not all for Kodi. In February 2020, he came back to the AGT stage once more for the AGT: The Champions finale. In his performance he sang “Sign of the Times” by Harry Styles.
Later in the year, he hit the stage once again. He performed during the AGT season 15 quarterfinals results show. In this performance, he sang “Break My Heart Again” by Finneas.
This 25 year-old has some really cool things on the horizon for the next few months. Lee will perform on AGT once more for tonight’s results show alongside H.E.R. The duo will sing H.E.R.’s song, “Hold On.”
On top of this AGT performance, this Got Talent veteran will be joining the AGT live Las Vegas concert series beginning this November. He’ll be alongside some other big names in AGT history in this series.
