Violinist Lindsey Stirling has shared the details on the devastating manner in which she was eliminated from America’s Got Talent back in 2010. Now, she reveals how the experience made her stronger and more resilient.
After her Quarterfinal performance on America’s Got Talent season 5, the judges not only criticized her, but dismissed her with cruel and cutting remarks.
You’re not good enough, Piers Morgan told her
“You’re not untalented, but you’re not good enough, I don’t think, to get away with flying through the air and trying to play the violin at the same time,” judge Piers Morgan said at the time.
“You need to be in a group,” Sharon Osbourne added. “What you’re doing is not enough to fill a theatre in Vegas.”
Lindsey has never forgotten that terrible experience. And it’s a memory she calls up everytime she meets an obstacle. But instead of allowing it to beat her down, she uses it to build herself back up.
“The most important thing I learned from my America’s Got Talent story is that we all have an inner gut,” Lindsey told ET Canada. “Some people would call that intuition, some would call it spirituality, some would say the universe is gutting them. Whatever it is.”
“When I was kicked off that show I was humiliated,” says Lindsey
“When I was on that show and I got kicked off, I was devastated. I mean humiliated. I did not want to pick up a violin again. I wished that I could erase the experience from existence.”
But instead of letting it wear her down, it only strengthened her resolve to work even harder. To become an even better performer and musician.
“I could take it for what it was when Piers Morgan said I didn’t have what it takes and it sounds like rats being strangled when I play the violin,” she explained. “I could take it as that or I could say, ‘You know what? Maybe at that moment, for them, I wasn’t good enough… but that doesn’t mean I’m not good enough forever.”
“Advice is for a moment,” she shares. “It’s not even who I was, it was how I performed that night. I had to add a really important word to that when they said I wasn’t good enough. Yet. I’m not good enough, yet. Or I wasn’t good enough that night. But I’m going to work my tail off.”
You need to work harder
Lindsey advises other artists to accept feedback, but apply it in a positive way.
“It changed my life to take that advice and take it for what I need it to be. You’re not good enough, yet. You need to work harder,” she explained. “Anyone who is successful has felt liked they’ve failed before multiple times. I feel like I’ve failed countless times since that day.”
“I look to that day on ‘AGT’ and how I felt walking off that stage any time I feel like I’m a failure,” Stirling said. “I remember that and think, Well, I got up from that. I can move past this. That moment made me so strong and it’s made me strong countless times since.”
Lindsey proved them wrong
And Lindsey has proven them all wrong. Her post-AGT career saw her become a huge star on Youtube. Lindsey competed on Dancing with the Stars in 2017. With partner Mark Ballas, the two finished in 2nd place. She performs concerts all over the world. She even returned to America’s Got Talent to perform on the season 13 finale in 2018 and on the AGT:The Champions season 1 finale in 2020 And currently during the COVID-19 pandemic, the violinist is performing Wave digital concerts.
“I was so blown away by how amazing the technology is,” she said. “I’m in this suit with all these tracking points on . it. In real time, I’m playing and dancing and watching an avatar version of myself perform live to 100,000 people. It is really cool.”
