9 year old Victory Brinker made “America’s Got Talent” history when she became the first contestant ever to receive a Golden Buzzer from all four judges, as well as the host. Victory has 10 siblings and currently lives in Latrobe, Pennsylvania with her parents Christine and Eric Brinker. The Brinker’s adopted nine of their eleven children including Victory who was adopted as a baby. All of the adoptions were open and the children maintain relationships with their birth parents, if possible.
Victory began singing at a young age and would often appear in videos with her older brother Isaac, a social media star on Vine with over a million followers. You may even remember her from their viral “too tired” Vine when she was just two years old.
At the age of 3, Victory memorized every song on a CD by Mandisa, an African American gospel and Christian music singer. The day before she turned 6, Victory asked her mom to show her a video of somebody who could sing the very highest notes, higher than Mandisa. Her mom showed her an opera singer and Victory said, ‘I’m gonna do that. Teach me a song.’ Two days later, Victory had learned ‘Ave Maria.’
In February of 2018, just three weeks after being shown the opera video, Victory entered the Rising Star talent competition in Fox Chapel, Pennsylvania. She performed her rendition of Ave maria and placed first in the competition. Having won her first talent competition, Victory continued entering contests to showcase her talent.
In April of 2018, she received the opportunity to sing at Carnegie Hall, an honor she earned after a win at the American Protégé Music talent competition. By the end of 2018, Victory had entered a total of 12 talent competitions, placing first in 11 of them.
With all of her accomplishments, also came the need to practice and learn new songs.
Victory’s mom, who sings and plays piano and has experience directing both youth and adult choirs, has been instrumental in her development. Her family recently enlisted the help of a Pittsburgh-based opera singer to make sure Victory doesn’t strain her vocal cords as she learns more challenging compositions. In addition to singing opera, Victory also speaks seven languages, including Italian, Latin, French, and German.
Soon Victory began receiving requests to perform outside of talent competitions.
One of her first opportunities came when she performed the National Anthem before a Utah Jazz basketball game in January of 2019. The team invited Victory back to sing the anthem again for their 2019 playoff game against the Houston Rockets. In April of 2019 Victory once again received the opportunity to perform the National Anthem, this time for the Pittsburgh Pirates home opener against the St Louis cardinals. A few months later, Victory traveled to New You to perform at the legendary Apollo theater.
Victory’s talent wasn’t just limited to singing and it wasn’t long before she landed her first movie role playing a featured extra in a short film to benefit St. Jude hospital called “Boy Hero”. From there she received two more acting opportunities, including the lead role of Izzy in the Christian film “Helping Izzy” as well as another short role in a film called Code Red.
In April of 2020, Victory made her television debut when she performed “Queen of the night” from the magic flute on NBC’s Little Big shots.
Victory’s success has not gone unnoticed. Soon after her appearance on Little Big shots, Victory’s family was contacted by AGT producers who invited her to compete on season 15 of the show. The family decided not to pursue the opportunity during the middle of the pandemic but it wouldn’t be long before Victory was performing again.
Victory also maintains an active social media presence on Instagram, Youtube, and Facebook. Her Instagram account has over 16,000 followers and contains posts of her performances, including an impressive cover of Andrea Bocelli’s “Fall on Me”.
At the beginning of the year, Victory had the opportunity to work with Dreamworks Studios, appearing in a Trolls World Tour music video where she performed “Just Sing” in German.
There have been many other appearances but now Victory has made it to the place she’s wanted to go since the start of her journey over three years ago, America’s Got Talent. AGT producers once again contacted the Brinker family and invited Victory to appear on season 16 of the show. Happy to have another chance, Victory accepted the opportunity to audition before the celebrity judges.
Before her performance, judge Simon Cowell asked Victory to tell the judging panel a little bit about herself. Victory admitted that she was “exnervous”, a combination of excited and nervous at the same time. Simon Cowell then asked what she’d do if she won the 1 million dollar prize. “Buy Simon a rainbow shirt that has glitter on it!” Victory said responded. “Do you think I need a rainbow shirt?” asked Simon.“You need some color,” Victory replied.
For her audition, Victory gave a soaring performance of “Juliet’s Waltz”, from the French opera Romeo et Juliette. The performance earned standing ovations from three of the judges while Simon Cowell remained seated. After the performance, Judge Howie Mandel said, I was not expecting that and you’re angelic. I loved it.” Judge Heide Klum told the singer, “You have a beautiful voice, you are incredible!”
Judge Sofia Vergara said, “You are a star. I think you have a powerful voice, that was amazing I really loved it.”
Judge Simon Cowell told Victory: I think auditioning and turning up sometimes is really important for your career and I think you have been incredibly brave to come here.
He then called host Terry Crews over to the judges’ table where he and judges huddled together while Victory waited nervously on stage. Simon then stunned the audience saying “we’re not going to give you a yes today.” The audience started booing and Simon went on to say “We’re going to do something else we’ve never, ever done on the show before. We are all going to give you something special.” As all four judges and the show’s host hit the Golden Buzzer at once, sending Victory straight to the live shows.
With her golden buzzer Victory made AGT history as the first contestant to have all four judges and the host give their golden buzzer to a contestant at the same time.
Do you think Victory has what it takes to win season 16 of America’s Got Talent? Let us know in the comments below and thank you for watching.
