Against all odds, Mandy Harvey has kept on singing.
When the 29-year-old appeared on “America’s Got Talent” on Tuesday night, she revealed to a shocked audience that she had lost her hearing 11 years earlier.
“I have a connective tissue disorder,” she told the judges. “So basically I got sick and my nerves deteriorated.”
As she stood on stage holding a ukulele, the woman who’d been singing since age 4 explained how she is still able to croon, despite not being able to hear herself do it.
“[I] figured out how to get back into singing with muscle memory, using visual tuners and trusting my pitch,” she said.
Harvey also removes her shoes when she’s performing to “[feel] the tempo, the beat through the floor.”
Alongside a keyboardist and an electric-guitar player, Harvey performed an original composition titled “Try.”
When judge Simon Cowell asked her what the piece was about, Harvey replied, “After I lost my hearing, I gave up. But I want to do more with my life.”
At the end of her performance, which received a standing ovation, Cowell lavished Harvey with praise.
“Honestly, I never think I’m going to be surprised or amazed by people,” he said. “And then you turn up.”