Beginning Tuesday, “AGT” moves into the Live Shows, in which just 44 acts compete.

America’s Got Talent judge Howie Mandel usually has ‘clear idea’ of which act will win. This season, he’s not so sure

Beginning Tuesday, “AGT” moves into the Live Shows, in which just 44 acts compete.

By Raechal Shewfelt

Raechal Shewfelt

Raechal Shewfelt is a writer at **. She has been working at EW since 2024. Her work has previously appeared on Yahoo and in American *Journalism Review* and *The Shreveport Times*.

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August 18, 2026 9:30 a.m. ET

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‘AGT’ judges Simon Cowell, Howie Mandel, Sofia Vergara, and Mel B with host Terry Crews. Credit:

Trae Patton/NBC

- *America’s Got Talent* judge Howie Mandel says he can’t predict who will win the show this season.

- Mandel has been on the panel since 2010.

- Live episodes of *AGT* featuring the top 44 acts of season 21 begin Tuesday.

*America’s Got Talent** *judge Howie Mandel doesn’t know which act will win the $1 million prize either.

“I usually, at this point, have a clear idea of who I believe is gonna win, and I think my batting average has been about 80 percent,” Mandel tells ** ahead of Tuesday’s episode, the first of this season’s Live Shows. “But this time, there are a couple of people that are just way out there.”

Mandel, who’s sat on the judges’ panel since 2010, says he’s always rooting for the contestants. Really. But he has a soft spot for people who do stand-up comedy, as he does. (Stand-ups Cris Sosa and Daniel Alvarez, as well as comedic singer Cesar Dias, are still part of the competition.)

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“Well, there’s nobody that I’m not pulling for,” Mandel says “Personally, I would like a comedian to do very well. I just believe, you know, that’s what I do and who I am.”

But he also calls out Nene Royal, the young artist who’s rocked the judges and, more importantly, the audience.

“We all are aware of Nene being the rockstar that she is and the global sensation that she has become just from two appearances on the show, one being the Callbacks,” Mandel says. “Within the first night of that airing, she had already had over 40 million clicks globally.”

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He notes that Hundred Fingers, the magicians that he awarded a Golden Buzzer, is “magic done in a way I’ve never seen it done before.”

Mandel trusts America to get it right with their votes, by narrowing down the pool of 44 acts, which also includes singers, magicians, aerialists, and more that the panel has brought to this point.

Howie Mandel at an ‘America’s Got Talent’ event in September.

Amanda Edwards/Getty

“You sit there like a parent at a recital,” he says. “For all the people, all the choices we made, and we said, ‘You’re the best.’ There’s not anybody there that we don’t believe has the capability of being the winner, but they have to rise to that occasion. And it’s a lot more nerve-wracking to do it live, to be this close to the million dollars, and to be face-to-face with such a high bar of competition. Incredibly high.”

*America’s Got Talent* airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on NBC and streams the next day on Peacock.

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Source: “EW Reality”