Merissa Beddows Mixes Opera Singing, Impressions in Her ‘AGT’ Audition
Photo by: Chris Haston/NBC Reading Time: 3 minutes
Merissa Beddows impresses the judges with her shocking song impression America’s Got Talent audition. This opera singer proves that she can keep it classic, transition into Ariana Grande’s style, and even hit the notes as Siri.
On June 24, America’s Got Talent released Merissa Beddows’s outstanding audition early. Ahead of her performance, the singer specified that she’s currently an Opera student at the Curtis Institute of Music. At first, it seemed like Simon Cowell was dreading another Opera performance, but I think Merissa changed his mind.
To begin the act, judge Heidi Klum was handed a giant die with six of Merissa’s favorite impressions on it. The singer explained that she would begin singing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” as herself, then transition into the impressions.
As soon as the song began, it was clear that Merissa is a seasoned performer. She gave an outstanding Judy Garland-like performance of the tune without any type of impression. Klum then picked the first impression as Ariana Grande. Merissa quickly switched keys and hit multiple high runs just like the pop singer. From there, Merissa took out a pair of glasses and piece of paper to initiate her grandmother singing the tune. This singer transitioned into Stevie Nicks, Celine Dion, Snow White, and finally Siri before finishing the song.
Tune into America’s Got Talent on Tuesday night to hear what the judges think of this performance.
Who Was Merissa Beddows Before AGT?
As we already know, Merissa is a student at Curtis Institute of Music. She is a soprano singer, that loves to do impressions. Outside of AGT, this singer loves to share her impressions with the world on TikTok. She’s gained over 745,000 followers on the video sharing app from her singing alone. It seems like she also has gained followers on Instagram from these videos as well. It appears that Merissa doesn’t have a YouTube channel or website at this time.
Merissa’s social media profiles feature a link to a gofundme campaign for her mother. Within the description, Merissa explains that she’s fundraising on behalf of her mother, whose suffered a series of medical emergencies that have resulted in hospitalizations. Since this is such a rough patch, she’s raising money to get her mother long term care. She specifies that her mother has been disabled and unemployed for years and her father has since passed on. Merissa has been her mother’s caregiver and primary advocate since she was 11.
This past March, her mother had another medical emergency which required recovery in an ICU for a week. While Merissa was travelling to her mother, she got a call stating that her mother ended up in a Neuro ICU, suffering from a brain hemorrhage. Merissa specified that her mother does not have any retirement savings and she’s hoping to be able to “continue my studies in school without having to worry about my mother’s health constantly.”
