Cape Girardeau’s Joy Brooker tries out on ‘America’s Got Talent’

Cape Girardeau singing telegram extraordinaire and social media sensation Joy Brooker is stepping onto America’s TV stage.

Brooker recently performed in front of the judges and crowd on NBC’s “America’s Got Talent”.

Brooker announced on her Facebook page Monday, March 27, that she was returning home from a “truly unforgettable experience.”

Brooker said in a text to the Southeast Missourian she is forbidden by contractual obligations to talk about the show, other than to share that Season 18 is set to premier around Tuesday, May 30.

Brooker is a singer and comedian who lives in Cape Girardeau, but vaulted herself into social media fame with her singing telegrams.

The performer wears a costume shaped like an

anatomically-correct heart and disrupts people’s work days to sing a selected song to those celebrating birthdays or anniversaries. The gig started as a Valentine’s Day job, but it keeps her busy nearly every day now.

Her biggest viral video was one where she sang a parody of the song “I’m Too Sexy” to a man named Craig during a team meeting. The video now has close to 150 million views.

Brooker has 640,000 followers on TikTok, 37,000 on Instagram and 129,000 followers on Facebook.

In a previous interview with the Southeast Missourian, she said the singing telegrams started out as a way to use her talents to earn some extra money. During the pandemic, when things slowed down, she posted some of her performances on social media, and they were wildly popular.

“I didn’t expect that,” Brooker said. “It’s funny because it’s their boss or whatever, and they get embarrassed and these are like inside jokes.” But it turns out the world loved being in on them.

It’s not clear whether Brooker performed comedy, singing or both on “America’s Got Talent”. She did standup comedy for a few years in California, before leaving that scene and moving to Sikeston, Missouri, for personal relationship reasons.

Another person with Sikeston connections is well known for his performances on “America’s Got Talent”.

Singer Neal E. Boyd, who was born and raised in Sikeston, won AGT in 2008. Boyd, an opera singer, also sang different types of songs in the competition, eventually winning the $1 million prize and a headline show at the MGM Grand Las Vegas. Boyd died in 2018 at the age of 42, due to natural causes.

Brooker heads into the AGT competition with a legion of followers on several platforms. On a Facebook reel, Brooker posed next to a large poster showing Simon Cowell, one of the show’s judges.

“What am I up to??,” Brooker wrote, along with a wink emoji. “Tune into Season 18 of America’s Got Talent to find out!!”

Joy Brooker performs a singing telegram in her anatomically correct heart costume. Brooker has auditioned for NBC's "America's Got Talent".Submitted

Joy Brooker performs a singing telegram in her anatomically correct heart costume. Brooker has auditioned for NBC's "America's Got Talent".Submitted