simon cowell parmesan© Photo: Getty Images

Simon Cowell confronted with AGT audition that divides audience and judges

The TV judge didn't know how to react

Ahad Sanwari - New York
Senior WriterNew York
June 1, 2022

Simon Cowell has seen several confusing auditions during his tenure as a reality competition judge, but none left him quite as divided as this one.

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America's Got Talent's premiere show featured an audition from Ben Lapidus, who came on giving the air of someone about to blow the judges away.

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He then launched into a rendition of a song about wanting to get more parmesan cheese with his Italian meal at a restaurant, a comedic ditty that featured the recurring lyric: "I always want more parmesan, but I'm embarrassed."

The audience quickly started to divide in their take on the song, with a few cheering him on and some booing. Simon quickly reacted by pressing his red buzzer, as did Howie Mandel and Sofia Vergara.

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Heidi Klum jived along to the song for quite a bit before hitting the buzzer when Ben started getting more rock-oriented with his performance. 

Ben Lapidus' audition divided the judges, especially Simon

The supermodel pledged her allegiance to the cause of parmesan as well, but Simon retorted with: "I hate bloody parmesan, it's disgusting."

The audience immediately started to boo him, and he maintained that he wasn't interested in putting Ben through. However, Heidi riled the audience up by cheering "Parmesan! Parmesan!" and campaigned to have Ben perform again.

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Eventually, after another round of the song, during which Simon couldn't stop smiling and glaring at the studio audience, he surprisingly turned the tables around by conceding: "Um, I wanna kill you right now but I can't get that line out of my brain. Take the X away, I'm giving you a 'yes'."

Heidi excitedly also gave him a "yes" but Howie didn't budge and delivered a stern "no." The decision came down to Sofia, who, after being egged on by the audience and fellow judges, said: "Okay, I guess I'm gonna have to say 'yes'!"

Simon was extremely confused by how he felt about the audition

He even reacted to the audition on his Instagram by sharing an edited clip of him that read: "This was absolutely the BEST WORST #AGT audition ever. I don't know what happened, but this song is now stuck in my brain and will probably never leave. And now this is my gift to you!"

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