CENTER STAGE

Cue the confetti! AGT's 20th season is going to be its most exciting one yet.

- BY EMILY ASLANIAN

WHEN THE LIGHTS came on for the first-ever season of America's Got Talent in the summer of 2006, over 12 million viewers were watching. That hugely successful launch—which boasted even better numbers than another talent show featuring Simon Cowell, American Idol—solidified the everyone-is-welcome talent competition as appointment television. But according to Cowell, it almost didn't happen.

“I can vividly remember NBC making us an offer to buy the show—and it was so exciting because nobody else wanted it,” the host recalls with a laugh.

“I was so grateful and just so excited that we could do it. If it hadn't been on NBC, we wouldn't be having this conversation right now.”

Two decades later, as AGT prepares to open its 20th season, with host Terry Crews and judges Cowell, Howie Mandel, Mel B and Sofia Vergara, that buzzing excitement is in the air. Former Spice Girl Mel B, who returns to AGT after participating in The Champions and Fantasy League spinoffs, says the feeling is incredible. “It's a completely different experience,” notes the singer, who recalls that she was in a toxic marriage the first time she sat at the judges' table (she previously judged from 2013 to 2018). “Now when I do the show, I can give 100 percent all the time. I also find that, because of what I've gone through, the contestants open up to me so much more.”