Simon Lifts His Shirt Up for a Bonkers AGT Audition: “I Want You to Freeze My Nipples”
Cowell, longtime AGT Judge and executive producer, found himself on stage during one of the night's most unexpected Auditions.
In one of the funniest moments in America's Got Talent history, a so-called philharmonic orchestra somehow got AGT Judge Simon Cowell to eagerly lift up his shirt so that the conductor could freeze his nipple, all in the name of music. No, really!
Here's how we got here. On the third night of Auditions for Season 20, the Osaka Philharmonic explained, through a translator, that they had just arrived from Japan. In town for one night only, they were determined to impress the Judges, and if they didn't make it through on AGT, they would break up then and there as a matter of honor. The stakes could not have been higher. Dressed in black suits and surrounded by instrument cases, they looked the part of a classic chamber orchestra.
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However, when it came time for them to play, it turned out the Osaka Philharmonic was a novelty act. Each of the young men revealed that he had a note drawn on his bare chest, and placed a harmonica in his mouth in a position corresponding to that note. But he didn't just blow when instructed. The group's conductor used a baton dipped in dry ice to make them blow by pressing it against each man's nipple at the appropriate time, eking out a passable version of Beethoven's "Ode to Joy."
How the Osaka Philharmonic got Simon's shirt off (almost)
Mel B. gave the silly Act an X, but the audience cracked up. After the Judges gave feedback, the conductor offered to let Cowell "try it," meaning the freezing baton, which Mel immediately encouraged, saying, "If you do his nipples, I'll take back my X."
Shrugging, Cowell gamely went on stage, saying he wouldn't take his shirt off, but he would lift it up, exposing just enough for the trick. But he really got into it when it was time to "play" the other Osaka musicians, who, like the Samurai they claimed to emulate, were still standing at attention, shirtless, harmonicas in their mouths, ready to go.
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True to her word, Mel B. took back her X, and promised the group that as long as they continue to incorporate (slash humiliate) Cowell, they'll always get a "Yes" from her. "I want you to freeze my nipples again...four yeses," Cowell told the group, later adding, "I'm going to lose my mind."
