🤡(M-AP)🤡MICHAEL BENNETT BREAKS AGT JUDGES WITH “STAND BY MY GRAVE” | COUNTRY ROCK LEAVES EVERYONE CRYING 💔
A video of an aging rocker named Michael Bennett performing a heart-tugging song on America’s Got Talent is eliciting powerful reactions around the globe. But the heavily tattooed musician with long white hair and thick silver rings on his fingers isn’t real. He’s AI-generated.
In one YouTube video making the rounds on social media, “Bennett” sings “After I’m Gone,” a tear-jerker of a ballad that conveys the pain of being ignored by his child. “You walk past everything I gave, like it was nothing at all,” the AI-generated musician sings while accompanying himself on electric guitar. “I gave you my whole life. You can’t give me one call.”
The gravelly voice sounds convincingly human, but a closer watch of the video suggests otherwise. There’s the lone tear on the man’s left cheek that remains static, never rolling down his weathered face. Then there are the numerous fake audience members who can’t contain exaggerated crying that tips into the uncanny. At times they even sob before he starts singing. Former America’s Got Talent judge Heidi Klum, her skin and hair bearing a telltale AI sheen, weeps so hard it stretches credulity.
A spokesperson for Fremantle, the entertainment production and distribution company behind America’s Got Talent, said in an email on Monday that it is unfamiliar with a contestant named Michael Bennett and confirmed that the video is AI-generated and not real footage from the talent contest.The company says it reviews such cases individually and works to have videos like this one removed to protect the show’s brand. As of Tuesday, the video of “After I’m Gone” is no longer available and now displays the message “This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Fremantle – America’s Got Talent.” The channel that posted it did not respond to a request for comment.
Wait, That’s A Different Nose
There are plenty other such videos of Bennett, though, and they’re proliferating fast — not just on YouTube, but on Tik Tok, Instagram and beyond — sometimes generating hundreds of thousands of views. In them, the singer’s appearance and voice keep shifting. The shape of his nose changes, and his voice takes on a new, higher timbre. No matter. While some viewers immediately identified Bennett as fake, the overwhelmingly majority appear to have found their new favorite artist.
“This man is terrific. What a singer,” YouTube user Catherine Grant wrote in the comments section of a video, now removed, showing Bennett singing a song called “The Weight of Waiting,” about being estranged from his son. Wrote Ruby Koreshi, “I am his fan for life. Wow, so powerful and passionate.”
This isn’t, of course, the first AI-generated musician to trick fans. Last year, an AI-generated band called The Velvet Sundown because a quaik seasation seemingly out of nowhere. The “band” initially denied being algorithmically driven before its creators confessed to the group’s true origins. Then there was the fictitious country band “Breaking Rust,” which landed a top Billboard hit in November.
Buying The Bennett Backstory
But Bennett is more than just his songs. He arrives with a powerful backstory of a formerly homeless 65-year-old who found music through prayer and hopes his songs will one day reach his long-lost child.
“I pray that he may heal,” YouTube user Alana Ferguson wrote. “He’s so soulful.”
Many YouTube commenters appear to relate personally to his story, sharing their own experiences of being separated from their children. “I hope my son hears this song,” YouTuber Shirley Noel wrote. “I’ve not seen him 25 years now.”
