America’s Got Talent: Howie Mandel gags as street performer Brett Loudermilk spits up toy duck

Notorious germaphobe Howie Mandel gagged when watching a contestant spit up a toy duck on Tuesday’s semifinals episode of America’s Got Talent.

Brett Loudermilk, a 31-year-old street performer from North Carolina, swore that he had swallowed the item in childhood, and brought along an endoscopic camera to prove it.

Howie, 64, stood above him wearing black gloves and a black mask with a face shield, and slowly lowered the camera down into Brett’s throat.

After everyone got a good look at the toy on camera, Brett regurgitated it, saying, ‘My child!’

He tried to offer it to Howie, saying, ‘That’s been in me for 20 years, Howie, keep this!’

Howie pulled away, yelping, ‘I don’t want it!’ as Brett pointed out, ‘You’re wearing gloves!’

After Howie gestured to Brett to set the duck down, the comedian strode quickly offstage.

New judge Sofia Vergara, 48, gave Brett the side-eye, telling him, ‘That was the most unnecessary thing. It’s like, ”What just happened in front of us?”

‘You got a glimpse no one’s ever seen before,’ Brett cheerily replied.

‘But we didn’t want to see that,’ Sofia said. ‘You’ve gone crazier and crazier with this act, but this one, I don’t even know what to say. Ask Howie, he talks a lot. Because I can’t say anything.’

Asked what he thought, Howie said, ‘I’m gonna be totally honest. I don’t know if I loved it.’

He then corrected himself, saying, ‘I didn’t love it,’ as AGT viewers on a giant TV screen booed him.

‘I get it,’ Brett said. ‘You’re a germaphobe, there’s a pandemic, I understand.’

Howie acknowledged he was right, but wondered, ‘If you go through, what’s next? How do you top that? With your bottom?’

Heidi Klum, 47, could only add: ‘You got to be ducking kidding me with that one!’

Just five acts of the 11 appearing on Tuesday’s show will go through to AGT’s finals next week, which would give them a shot at a $1 million prize.

The W.A.F.F.L.E. Crew from New York City kicked the show off in spectacular fashion, dancing to Joe Budden’s Pump It Up in a warehouse on the Universal Studios lot.

‘We can always count on you guys to lift our spirit and lift our energy,’ said Heidi, as the other judges agreed that Simon Cowell’s Golden Buzzer act had been fantastic. 

Kenadi Dodds, a 15-year-old singer from North Logan, Utah, next covered Thomas Rhett’s Be A Light, and made a fan of Howie, who’d been unimpressed during the quarterfinals.

‘Unlike what I said the last time you were on, for me, this performance was a huge step up,’ he told her. ‘You just made America’s job a little tougher.’

Mentalist Max Major, from Las Vegas, wowed the crowd by having the judges name numbers on a roulette wheel, then revealed a lottery ticket with those very numbers.

In a moment that went unnoticed, Max said an audience member gave him the number ’14,’ though it sounded exactly like ’13,’ and his act carried on, unaffected.

Oddly, when Max had Heidi toss a ball into a roulette wheel, it landed on 13, which was the same number Max had printed on a billboard at Universal CityWalk Hollywood.

Howie and Sofia proclaimed themselves confused by Max’s act, but Heidi asked them, ‘What are you not getting?’ and reflected that as Max’s assistant, she was ‘terrific!’

The Bello Sisters, a trio of Italian acrobats aged 13, 19, and 22, then earned a standing ovation from the judges for the way they supported each other while doing contortions.

‘Three delicate flowers like you look, and then so strong, so perfect,’ Sofia marveled.

Celina Graves, a 30-year-old singer from San Diego, gave the audience chills with her cover of Labrinth’s Jealous, which Sofia said was so good, it was like watching an awards show.

Jonathan Goodwin, a 40-year-old Welsh daredevil, scared the judges with a stunt that he said had never been performed before, and which challenged his fear of heights.

He rode a zipline by clenching his teeth around a pulley that was lit on fire. Midway, he had to free his bound hands and undo a combination lock to keep going safely.

The ropes above Jonathan’s head fell into flames around him, and he barely made it through and across before collapsing onto a platform, his nose smudged with ash.

‘You have to be a little cuckoo in the head to do this thing,’ a shaken Sofia said. ‘This is not like a trick or an illusion; he’s actually doing these insane things to himself.’

Cristina Rae, a singer from Nashville, Tennessee, hit all the right notes with her rendition of Cynthia Erivo’s Jump, which had Howie calling her the vocalist to beat.

Cristina’s toddler Jeremiah watched her perform, his face lit up on a TV screen.

‘I love you so much,’ she told him. ‘I want you to always do the impossible.’

Bad Salsa, the Kolkata, India-based dance duo, was another standout for their rapid-fire moves, which often saw dancer Sonali Majumder, 15, flung around by her legs.

‘Every time you guys show up, even when I’m watching with my family, everybody wants to dance,’ Sofia said. ‘I really wish that you guys go to the finals because I love you.’

The Voices Of Our City Choir, from San Diego, turned in a stellar performance of David Bowie’s Heroes, earning loud cheers and a standing ovation.

Many choir members had been homeless, and in a pre-taped video they thanked founder Stephanie Johnson, who cried when her mom said how proud she was.

Howie called Steph a ‘hero,’ and said, ‘We’ve never had that kind of gravitas on this stage, where there’s a message everybody needs to hear and do something about.’

The last act of the evening was 14-year-old singer Daneliya Tuleshova from Kazakhstan, who sounded like a veteran rockstar with her cover of Jessie J’s Who You Are.

‘There must be something in the water with the children’ on the show, Heidi opined. ‘You guys are absolutely incredible. ‘

America’s Got Talent will air its results show Wednesday on NBC.