Fil-Am Anna De Guzman, first female magician on 'America's Got Talent,' finishes at 2nd place
MANILA, Philippines — Filipino-American magician Anna De Guzman finished as the runner-up for the 18th season of reality competition show "America's Got Talent."
Anna already made history as the first female magician to make it to the finals of "America's Got Talent," and was on course to becoming the show's first Filipino-American winner.
The title, however, went to Adrian Stoica and his dog Hurricane, winning also $1 million (P57 million) and a one-off performance slot in Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas.
For her final trick, Anna involved members of the audience, judges Howie Mandell, Heidi Klum, Sofia Vergara, and Simon Cowell, and host Terry Crews.
The crowd each had a secret card sealed in an envelope, and Anna had the judges shuffle their own decks of cards and seal one card of their choice in their own envelopes.
Terry shuffled his own deck and took out a chunk to keep, then Anna showed off some shuffling tricks before selecting several cards of her own.
Anna managed to match nearly all of Terry's cards — two of hearts, six of diamonds, nine of spades, two of diamonds, three of hearts, ten of clubs, and ten of spades — which happened to signify the broadcast time of her trick (September 26, 2023 at 10:10 p.m.).
Terry had one card left, the queen of hearts, which was the card in everyone's sealed envelopes, prompting applause from the crowd and the amazement of the judges.
Anna's mother Tess flew from the Philippines to see her only daughter perform the historic magic trick, a huge milestone for the single parent.
"This has been very bonding. My mom doesn't really know this world. She's always been a very normal conservative woman," Anna told NorthJersey.com after the finale. "She would never do anything like what I do. She's not a performer. She's not a singer. For her this is so new, being on TV. This is the first time I feel she's kind of been brought into my world."
"I don't think there is losing. I think I've already won," she ended. — Video from the YouTube channel of "America's Got Talent"
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