Houston's Kechi earns the golden buzzer on 'America's Got Talent: The Champions'

Kechi earned the golden buzzer on 'America's Got Talent: The Champions.' Kechi earned the golden buzzer on 'America's Got Talent: The Champions.' Photo: NBC Photo: NBC Image 1 of / 164 Caption Close Houston's Kechi earns the golden buzzer on 'America's Got Talent: The Champions' 1 / 164 Back to Gallery

Kechi knows how to bring a crowd to tears. And it's made her a champion.

The Houston singer earned a golden buzzer from Simon Cowell during Monday's episode of "America's Got Talent: The Champions." It puts her through directly into the finals, bypassing the public vote.

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"I didn't really like it that much," Cowell said after Kechi's moving rendition of Calum Scott's "You are the Reason."

"I actually loved it."

A shocked Kechi burst into tears when the gold confetti started to fall.

"For the longest time, I've been recognized as a survivor," Kechi, 28, said. "But being on 'America's Got Talent' was the first time that I was recognized as a singer."

Kechi was a top 10 finalist on Season 12 of "AGT." Her voice and harrowing story made her an emotional favorite. She was one of two survivors of the Sosoliso Airlines Flight 1145 plane crash in Nigeria that killed 107 people. Okwuchi and her family moved to Texas in 2007 for treatment at Shriner's Hospital for Children in Galveston. She's undergone more than 100 surgeries.

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In 2015, she graduated from the University of St. Thomas with a degree in economics and gave a speech during her commencement ceremony.

Judge Howie Mandel called her "a champion of life."

The Texas Tenors, a vocal trio from Houston, also competed on the show. But the public vote went to singer Brian Justin Crum.