t’s a season of surprises on America’s Got Talent, with one pizza-cutting teenager well on the road to becoming a singing sensation. Already backed by a large social media following, Summer Rios can add millions more views to her résumé after taking the AGT stage with her “spectacular” audition.
Who is Summer Rios?
Nineteen-year-old Summer Rios hails from Brunswick, Ohio, a Pizza Hut Manager with dreams of paying her bills and leaving her pizza cutter behind.
“This is the ‘make it’ or ‘break it’ moment,” the singer said backstage while speaking to her mother virtually over the phone.
The nervous and smiling teen told Judges Simon Cowell, Howie Mandel, Sofia Vergara, and Heidi Klum that she’d been singing since age 4, though she had yet to sing for an audience as big as AGT. Rios hoped to put herself out there more “and not have so much anxiety.”
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Rios mentioned once working with her ex-boyfriend at the local Pizza Hut, admitting she hoped he wasn’t watching the audition. When asked by Cowell what she might say to the ex, Rios said, “Hello? I hope you’re doing good, I guess? No, not really,” much to the Judges’ amusement.
“Now it’s just me, so I’m working a lot of morning-to-closes, trying to still pay my bills and stuff,” the singer continued. “I’m hoping this will get me out of pizza cutting and pizza making.”
Rios has already amassed hundreds of thousands of followers between her Instagram and TikTok profiles. Some of her content — including her cover of Lewis Capaldi’s “Hold Me While You Wait” and Olivia Rodrigo’s “Drivers License” — garnered millions of views over the past few years. Her rendition of Bishop Briggs’ “River” also went viral.
In July 2022, Rios told The Hype Magazine that she grew up in talent shows and local singing competitions, persuaded by her friends in middle school to create a social media account devoted to her talent.
“Music is a very serious thing to me. I’ve grown up singing, writing, and playing instruments my entire life, so it has always been in my environment,” Rios told the outlet. “It hits a certain part of my heart and makes me feel in a comfort state of mind when writing or singing.”
