A video going viral on social media (here, here, and here) allegedly shows a five-year-old boy who lost his mother, performing a song dedicated to her on the stage of America’s Got Talent season 2024. A user shared the video with the caption, “A young boy moved the judges to tears with his performance on America’s Got Talent season 2024.” Let’s verify the truth behind the video in this article.
Claim: Video shows a five-year-old boy singing in memory of his late mother on America’s Got Talent 2024 stage.
Fact: The viral video is edited. The judges’ reactions are taken from an episode of ‘The X Factor UK’ show published on 31 August 2015, where contestant Josh Daniel dedicated Labrinth’s song Jealous to his late friend. The child in the viral video is not real, it was created by the YouTube channel “Talent America Son” and uploaded on 04 October 2024. The video description revealed that it features a fictional virtual avatar for entertainment, with no link to the real Got Talent show or its participants. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
A reverse image search of keyframes from the viral video of the judge’s reactions led us to the original YouTube video uploaded by “The X Factor UK” on 31 August 2015, titled “Josh Daniel sings Labrinth’s Jealous | Auditions Week 1 | The X Factor UK 2015 The X Factor UK 2015”. Upon closely watching the video and analyzing it frame by frame, we found that the judges and audience’s reactions matched (here, here here, and here) when contestant Josh Daniel performed Labrinth’s song Jealous on stage, which he dedicated to his late friend. No young child was performing for his mother; instead, it was a young man performing in memory of his friend. This confirms that a compilation of two videos was edited to make the viral video.
We then conducted a reverse image search of keyframes from the viral video of the child, which led us to the YouTube channel “Talent America Son,” where the viral video was uploaded on 04 October 2024. The description clarified that the video featured a virtual avatar created for entertainment with no connection to the real Got Talent show or its participants. All characters and events in the video are fictional and intended as a creative experience.
After thoroughly reviewing the “Talent America Son” YouTube channel, we found multiple videos showing children performing on the America’s Got Talent stage. The “About” section revealed that the channel features fictional content created solely for entertainment. It notes that the stories, characters, and situations are not real, and any resemblance to actual people, places, or events is coincidental, inviting viewers to enjoy the content with a focus on entertainment.
Factly previously debunked similar edited videos of America’s Got Talent judges’ reactions that went viral with several false claims (here, here, here, and here).
To sum up, an edited video is shared with a false claim of a real performance by a boy singing in memory of his late mother on America’s Got Talent 2024 that moved the judges to tears.
