My two appearances on the biggest talent show in the world were bookends to a global pandemic. My first appearance filmed in February of 2020. By the time America’s Got Talent aired my episode a global pandemic had been declared and I watched alone at home in June of 2020. My next appearance was nearly derailed by a positive test, but I recovered in time and filmed in April of 2023 and by the time it aired in June of 2023, the pandemic was officially declared over.
When AGT invited me on the show I was on a flight to LA already to film another TV show. I was in disbelief since I thought my “once in a lifetime” shot at AGT was over. It turns out Howie Mandel didn’t have a Guinness World Record and I was going to do everything in my power to get him one.
I recently broke the Guinness World Records title for the most alternate fist bumps in 30 seconds with my neighbor Jonathan “Hollywood” Hannon’s son Joey with 273 fist bumps on 30 seconds. It went viral. And that resulted in round 2 of my America’s Got Talent experience.
Howie Mandel is famous for never shaking hands with anyone. He fist bumps as a greeting. He did it before the pandemic made it popular. In fact, when I went on in 2020, backstage Howie greeted me and congratulated me on breaking a Guinness World Records title. I was so excited, I forgot his number one public greeting rule and tried to shake his hand. He offered his fist and our first fist bump was made. Little did I know that 3 years later we’d be at it again.
I went in with 3 goals: 1) Break a Guinness World Record, 2) get a “Yes” from Howie Mandel, and 3) have fun. It was a success on all 3 counts. We got 380 Fist Bumps in 30 seconds crushing the previous record of 273 (that’s what a couple months of training can do). Michael did let me know backstage he had to disqualify a few of the bumps because they either weren’t alternating or solid contact.
