Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Catching up with 13-year-old ‘America’s Got Talent’ winner Darci Lynne Farmer

America's Got Talent

Darci Lynne Farmer came up big winning Season 12 of “America’s Got Talent.”

If you watched Oklahoma City singing ventriloquist Darci Lynne Farmer win Season 12 of “America’s Got Talent” in September, you know she’s a naturally gifted performer. You may not know that Las Vegas played a role in her choice of performance.

Darci Lynne is in town this weekend to headline “America’s Got Talent Live” at the Planet Hollywood Showroom for four sold-out shows November 2-5. But she’s been to Vegas before. She competed in youth pageants from ages 7-9, and it was here that she developed a love for ventriloquism.

“I met this girl who did ventriloquism at the pageant and I would watch her perform, and it was like a kid staring at a puppy. I was so fascinated,” she says. “I just thought, I have to try this. It was my calling and I wanted to do it. She was nice enough to give me some tips, and it took me two weeks to learn it good enough to perform.”

Since she’d been singing since the age of 6, Darci Lynne picked it up quickly, as she demonstrated by wowing the judges, the audience and the rest of the country on “AGT.” In the finale, she performed “Anything You Can Do” with Terry Fator, the Strip’s resident ventriloquist star at the Mirage and another “AGT” winner.

The live show at Planet Hollywood, also featuring this season’s finalists Angelica Hale, Light Balance and Preacher Lawson, added two shows after selling out the first two in record time. “It’s just crazy that many people want to come see all of us. But everyone is gonna love the show. We have so much good talent and we’re really excited,” says Darci Lynne, who just celebrated her 13th birthday in October. “It’s weird to think I’m in a show in Vegas with my name in lights. It’s crazy, like a dream.”

The impressive repertoire of singing styles and puppet characters she showcased while winning the competition is expanding. The young star-in-the-making used classics from George Gershwin, Smokey Robinson, Aretha Franklin and The Beatles during her “AGT” run, but she’s adding opera and yodeling numbers into the mix. It seems as if the sky is the limit, but she’s taking it all in stride.

“I really don’t want to guess or assume,” Darci Lynne says when asked what’s next for her new showbiz career. “I just leave it all to the man upstairs and the future. I’m just excited to see what comes next and I’m gonna be ready for it.”

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