The Real Reason Why Howie Mandel Missed Part of 'America's Got Talent'

For the seventh and final week of auditions, Howie Mandel was again missing from his judge's chair for about 20 minutes of America’s Got Talent with host Terry Crews telling the audience, “Howie is not here today. Listen, we wish him the best and hope he gets well soon and is right back in that chair.”

Halfway through the July 19 episode, Howie managed to make his triumphant return. Here is what he posted on Twitter at the time.

“We missed you,” Terry told Howie.

“I have had days of misery without you,” Simon chimed in.

“Are you feeling better?” Terry asked.

To which Howie responded, “I am feeling 1000 percent better. I am so thrilled to be here.”

In fact, he was just in time to judge an act that was a definite homage to the bald-headed judge when the John Glenn High School Dance Team took the stage.

When Howie first missed part of the episode back on June 14, host Terry Crews announced, “Howie Mandel isn’t feeling good, so he won’t be here tonight.”

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That may seem strange to people if they think that each episode is recorded in order, but that isn’t the case. Different days are edited together to make up each week’s episode in order to give the audience a good balance of talent. All singers or magicians in one night which would prove boring.

The editing is especially obvious if you watch the outfits worn by judges Heidi Klum and Sofia Vergara, who are constantly changing, but then wearing the same outfits the following week.

Since the auditions are pre-taped prior to the start of the Live Shows, Howie has since recovered from whatever his illness was, and was able to show his sense of humor on Tuesday night by posting on Twitter:  “Sorry everyone, can you cover for me tonight?”

He also posted a couple of responses to some funny tweets that others had put up:

And this one where metal singer Harper’s father was invited to take Howie’s seat while his daughter performed:

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In Howie’s absence on June 14, Terry also announced that it would only take two yeses to go through instead of the usual three, but that turned out not to be necessary. All the acts that went through got three yeses.

We can expect that Howie’s absence will also be felt in upcoming episodes where the acts were filmed on the day he was out ill, but he will be back for the rest of the season other than that. In the past, when a judge was out, if there was enough notice a guest judge replaced them like the time that Eric Stonestreet filled in when Heidi Klum wasn't feeling well.

America’s Got Talent airs Tuesday nights at 8 p.m. ET/PT on NBC.

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