Who won America's Got Talent? AGT 2026 winner Nene Royal pulled off a first in 21 seasons
A 16-year-old rocker from Phuket just closed out the season with a Linkin Park duet, a million dollars, and a piece of AGT history nobody had claimed before.
Nene Royal won America's Got Talent. If you watched literally any of Season 21, this is the least surprising sentence of the week — the Thai teenager was the frontrunner roughly from the moment she plugged in her guitar. On Wednesday's live finale, Terry Crews made it official: the 16-year-old singer-guitarist from Phuket, real name Rattikarn "Praew" Amloy, took the title, the $1 million, and a Las Vegas headlining slot, becoming the first Thai contestant ever to win the show.
That's not even the record the season will be remembered for. Per the franchise's own bookkeeping, Nene is the first live Golden Buzzer act to win AGT in all 21 seasons — Mel B smashed her buzzer during the live Top 44 round, catapulting Nene straight past the semifinals into the finale. Every previous champion who rode a Golden Buzzer got it back in the cozy audition rooms; nobody had ever converted the live-show version into a title. She's also just the fourth Asian act to win, after Kenichi Ebina, Shin Lim, and Jessica Sanchez.
The finale, in receipts
- The closing argument: a full-throttle cover of The White Stripes' "Seven Nation Army," delivered in red with an electric guitar, which put the judges on their feet and sent Howie Mandel into the crowd to hug her dad.
- The victory lap: after America's vote, Linkin Park brought her out for "The Emptiness Machine" — and handed the kid the opening verse of their own song.
- The podium: card magician Geno Ploeger took second, South Korean synchronized-illusion group Hundred Fingers third, with Royal Lasers and aerialist Veronika Goroshkova rounding out the Top 5. The Unitree dancing robots, blessedly, did not medal.
- The panel: Simon Cowell was still out recovering from back surgery, so KSI guest-judged the finale.
The stand-in became an instant convert. His verdict after "Seven Nation Army":
"That was out of this world."
Mandel went further in the finale, telling America exactly what to do with its votes — he called Nene
"the biggest, most talented, most viral talent to be on that stage."
Phuket noticed
Back home, the win landed as a national event: fans and musicians flooded social feeds with her performances, and the Thai government publicly congratulated her for putting Thai talent on an international stage. Nene, who adopted her stage name at 12 and turned 16 the day after her audition taped, entered the show saying she wanted to become an international rock artist. She now exits it with a million dollars, a Vegas booking, and a Linkin Park collab on her résumé before her junior year of high school.
Previously we wrote: Maura Higgins climbs the DWTS leaderboard — and Peacock just made her an I'm a Celebrity host mid-season
