There’s no treat if the trick doesn’t work. Emma Bunton learned that adage the hard way on Tuesday night’s (Aug. 4) America’s Got Talent. The Spice Girls‘ Baby Spice was a special guest adjudicator on the Judges’ Callbacks episode of the show in which her bandmate, Mel “Scary Spice” B, brought back a few of her favorite acts for private command performances to see if they had what it takes to make it to the season 21 live shows.
The newly added twist to the show’s format — a second Callbacks round will air on Aug. 11 — finds the selected performers pleading their case one more time before judges Mel B, Howie Mandel, Sofia Vergara and Simon Cowell, with Tuesday’s episode focused on the contestants traveling to Mel B’s childhood home town of Leeds, England as well as Cowell’s cliffside home in Malibu, Calif.
First up was magician Joel M, who pulled the classic “can I have a piece of jewelry?” bit on the Spices, asking Bunton to hand over a ring after promising Mel that he would not ask her to give up any baubles for his trick. He didn’t, however, ask Bunton the same, so she cried out in fake outrage as she handed over a chunky gold ring, which he promptly tossed into a plastic bag full of other golden rings.
He dumped all the rings into a giant haystack — get it? — and asked both women to scroll around on the AGT site and pick one word they see, with Bunton choosing “walnut” and Mel settling on “audition.” After asking Bunton to pick a lemon from a bowl stacked with them, the magician began cutting it open and, to their surprise, pulled out a walnut. Bunton seemed displeased that it didn’t immediately reproduce her ring, but instead coughed up one of Mel’s chicken eggs.
Reminding Mel that she’d picked the word “audition,” he showed the singer that it was carved into the egg’s shell, quickly smashing it to reveal, yes, of course, a walnut. Still no ring, though. “What’s inside?” Bunton wondered, adding “it can’t be my ring!,” as both women recalled that he’d thrown the jewelry on the haystack behind him.
Cracking the walnut, Joel then, naturally, produced the ring to Bunton’s shock and amazement. “You are joking me!,” she said, gobsmacked.
AGT airs on NBC on Tuesday nights and streams the next day on Peacock.
Watch the trick below.
