Last year, during filming of America’s Got Talent, Simon Cowell broke his back in a freak bicycle injury. He did not return to filming for the rest of the season and after making a full recovery, he made his TV comeback during the current season of the talent competition show.
On Tuesday (June 22), Cowell took to Twitter to tease that night’s episode for his 11 million followers, saying, “I thought breaking my back was the worst thing that could happen to me…”
The video he shared with the tweet showed Sofia Vergara being blindfolded and tasked with shooting an arrow from a crossbow at a balloon that was held above Cowell’s head. The clip cut out after Vergara pulled the trigger and the audience began screaming.
I thought breaking my back was the worst thing that could happen to me… Watch #AGT tonight on @nbc pic.twitter.com/X2sha2CG9C
— Simon Cowell (@SimonCowell) June 22, 2021
The episode aired just a few hours after Cowell’s tweet so we could see what was really going on. Contestants Ryan Stock and Amberlynn Walker first competed on the show five years ago during Season 11. They are a “comedy danger act” and the last time they were on the AGT stage, things went awry and Amberlynn shot a flaming arrow at Ryan’s neck.
They were eliminated after that, but have been perfecting their act the last five years and came back to audition for Season 16. Ryan told the judges, “We’ve been working on the crossbow act — and we’re doing scarier things.”
They kicked off their act with a couple insane trick crossbow shots. Ryan shot once towards Amberlynn and then they switched places, Amberlynn put on a blindfold and then shot an arrow towards Ryan, who was holding a balloon in his mouth.
Next, they asked for Cowell and Vergara to join them on stage. As we know, Vergara was blindfolded and Cowell took Ryan’s spot with a balloon over his head. Once Vergara was blindfolded, though, the prop and makeup departments rushed onstage to make Cowell look as though he’d been shot in the chest!
Before Vergara even shot the crossbow, Cowell laid down on the floor to make it look even more believable. After she shot, the crowd screamed and she finally took off her blindfold to see Cowell on the floor with a bow in his chest and she began freaking out.
Cowell called out for Vergara, while host Terry Crews yelled for a medic. Cowell said, “Sofia…I got ya!” and began laughing while Vergara almost fell over from relief that she did not kill her boss! Once they got back to the judges’ table, she told Cowell, “You know I’m Colombian and you know we take revenge.”
They never did end up judging the act, so it seems Cowell just brought them back to be part of the prank on Sofia Vergara .
Watch the full act below!