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13-year-old autistic magician wows judges on ‘Britain’s Got Talent’

Simon Cowell remarked that “there’s something really, really incredible” about the Irish teen.

By

Tod Perry

britain's got talent, cillian o'connor, simon cowell
Photo credit: via Britain’s Got Talent/YouTube – Cillian O'Connor wows judges on "Britain's Got Talent."

Cillian O’Connor, a 13-year-old from County Meath, Ireland, wowed judges on “Britain’s Got Talent” on April 15 by making cards appear out of nowhere, making milk disappear and conjuring up a huge jar of jelly beans for Simon Cowell.

The appearance would have been incredible for any magician, let alone a teenager, but O’Connor’s was even more remarkable because he has autism spectrum disorder and dyspraxia.

Social anxiety is prevalent in people with autism, with reports showing it could be as high as 50%. Further, dyspraxia is a neurodevelopmental condition that makes it difficult for people to perform motor skills. Every magician needs two things: being comfortable in front of an audience and above-average fine motor skills. O’Connor believes that magic has helped him to develop both.

Before studying the art of magic, O’Connor says he didn’t want to be within “50 feet” of people. But all that changed after picking up his new skill.

“I have learned that having autism is not a disability, it’s an ability. When I was younger, I was unable to interact with people,” O’Connor said during his performance. “I felt a bit empty, incomplete. I felt invisible. After discovering magic, my life changed. It was like a light switch coming on inside my head.”

“I found a way to interact with people through my magic,” he added.

During his routine, O’Connor took the audience on a journey. He discussed the transformative power of magic while transporting milk across the stage, helping Simon Cowell guess the exact number of jelly beans in a jar and pulling a 7 of diamonds out of nowhere.

And he did it all with amazing dexterity and confidence on stage.

After his performance, he received a standing ovation from the audience, and all four judges gave him “yesses” to move on to the next round.

Simon Cowell was particularly impressed—no easy feat.

“Wow, you are unbelievably talented. Seriously,” Cowell said, noting that the jelly bean trick freaked him out. “There is something really, really incredible about you, and I do believe in magic, and you are such an amazing performer. Brilliant, brilliant.”

Judge Bruno Tonioli held back tears when giving his appraisal.

“I was totally, totally captivated by what you were doing,” he exclaimed. “For somebody so young, it’s an incredible quality. You have a fantastic future in front of you.”

After the judges passed O’Connor, his mother rushed to the stage and hugged him.

“Six years ago our quiet, shy, anti-social, little boy saw a little girl, Issy Simpson, perform Magic on Britain’s Got Talent. Cillian became obsessed with Magic, and he always dreamed of someday being just like that #youngmagician,” she wrote on Facebook.

“When I grow up, I want to be a magician,” O’Connor said before his routine. “What I like about magic is just trying to make people smile.” Well, Cillian. There’s no need for you to wait to grow up to be a magician. After that performance, you have all the right in the world to start calling yourself one now.

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    Photo credit: @beavanzulu/TikTok, used with permission – Beavan Zulu performs emo-fied songs for his grandfather's surgery.
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    Singer raises $40K for his grandpa’s surgery by turning pop songs into ’emo’ epics

    “I took a leap of faith.”

    Heather Wake

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    As Zulu explained, his grandfather, Mr. Rebby Malekani Chanda, required a type of surgery for his heart condition that isn’t provided in Zambia. The closest available area that could provide such treatment was in India, over 4,000 miles away. But Zulu’s family was already financially tapped out from Mr. Chanda’s previous medical care costs.  

    However, Zulu was determined to get his grandfather the help he needed. 

    @beavanzulu

    Please help in any way you can and INTERACT!!! https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-mr-malekani-get-lifesaving-heart-surgery #gofundme

    ♬ original sound – user16850017189

    “I love my grandpa so much, and he deserves this care.”

    Faced with this daunting financial hurdle, Zulu could have simply shared the GoFundMe created by his family. Instead, he leaned into something a little more personal, with a lot more attitude. Not to mention makeshift sideswept bangs. 

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    “I took a leap of faith and posted the first video not thinking anything crazy would come from it,” Zulu recalled with Upworthy. 

    @beavanzulu

    Let’s save my grandpa!! Comment your fav Disney movie and tag @Idina Menzel so she can give me some pointers 🥴 #cover #disney

    ♬ original sound – Beavan Zulu

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    Millions leaned into all of Zulu’s whiny, dramatic emoisms and commitment to eyeliner energy. Exceeding all expectations, Zulu received all of his $40K goal in a matter of four days. 

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    @beavanzulu

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    ♬ original sound – Beavan Zulu

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    @beavanzulu

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    ♬ original sound – Beavan Zulu

    Even in such a difficult time, Zulu leaned into joy, and it inspired complete strangers to rally for his cause. Sure, the fun nostalgia helped, but him putting his whole heart out on the line is what moved people. Laughter, music, and love really are wonderful tools for creating miracles. 

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    Be sure to give Zulu a follow to watch even more amazing emo covers (at the time of this writing, we’re up to six iconic songs featuring side bangs and fingerless gloves). 

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    Photo credit: Instagram, Inside the Actors Studio, Canva – Robin Williams makes a woman laugh until she cries in interview clip.
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    A woman’s outrageously infectious laugh once left Robin Williams mesmerized during his own interview

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    A mechanic found hundreds of canvases in a dumpster. Now, they’re worth millions.

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    Go ahead. Pick up your jaw from the floor and read that again.

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    This article originally appeared four years ago. It has been updated.

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    How does he afford to live on a cruise ship?

    “I have a spreadsheet that automatically records all my expenses, which helps. I also set a budget every year,” he says. “This year, my base fare budget is about $30,000, and last year when I started really looking at the numbers and evaluating how much base fare I paid to be on a ship for 300 nights, I found it was almost neck-and-neck with what I paid for rent and trash service for an apartment in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.”

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    Gutridge believes that the key to living on the ship affordably is loyalty programs. He found he was spending less each year thanks to his loyalty status, even as he spent more time cruising.

     “Now, because I cruise so often with Royal Caribbean, I’ve moved up in its loyalty program. My drinks and internet are free. If people are going to do something like what I do, I recommend trying different brands because they all offer something different. But once you commit to one, you should stick to it so you reach those loyalty levels,” he says.

    When he’s not on the ship, he makes doctor and dentist appointments and spends time with his friends. Then, it’s back on the high seas, where he has a routine. Monday through Friday, he works, eats healthy, and goes to the gym. On the weekends he’ll let loose and have a few drinks.

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    “Almost any photo taken of you with a commonly available cell phone without additional equipment will not display anything approaching an accurate summation of you but an artistic rendering of what the camera is able to capture,” she continued. “Cameras are not people. People don’t freeze frames of time for all eternity down to the pixel and automatically enhance certain features like the darkness of pores and fine lines in your skin.”

    “If you want the best chance at getting good feedback pre-op about what you might want to change,” she added, “I’d recommend a skilled photographer take a series of photos of you at different focal lengths and even then none of these will be entirely accurate as none of these employ humans’ binocular vision and filtering.”

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    A group of friends taking a selfie. Photo credit: Canva

    One collage that proves your selfie camera is lying to you

    Winters shared a collage of photos of the same girl’s face at different focal lengths to show the significant difference it makes. “Notice how in different photos this child’s eyes may appear to be slightly hooded,” she wrote. “The nose appears enlarged disproportionately. Hairline seems to shift with every snap. So does jaw shape, face shape, and even the width and size of the ears.”

    The same person can look drastically different in photographs. Photo credit: Facebook

    The difference between each of these photos is significant, but the difference between the first and the last is stunning. Cellphone selfie cameras usually have an even smaller focal length than the 40 mm shown here (Winters points out that many smartphone selfie cameras have a focal length equivalent of around 23 mm), so they distort facial features even more. It also depends on how far away from the camera you are. The closer you are, the more distortion you’ll see. Lighting matters, too, but even the best lighting can’t cancel out what the focal length is doing.

    Vox shared a video specifically about the “big nose” phenomenon with selfies, showing how drastic the distortion can be.

     At a time when so many people are making decisions about their appearance based on what they see on tiny screens, this kind of education matters more than ever. A phone camera is a remarkable piece of technology, but it was built to capture moments, not to render an accurate portrait of your face. Before you book a consultation or spiral into self-criticism over a photo, take a breath and remember: the camera is distorting you, not defining you.

    This article originally appeared four years ago. It has been updated.

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    Former Levi’s CEO Chip Bergh settled the debate on how often you should wash your jeans

    “We don’t need to wash jeans as often as most people think we do.”

    Tod Perry

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    Social media has become a fertile breeding ground for conversations about hygiene. Whether it’s celebrities bragging about how little their family bathes, or battles over how often people should wash their sheets or bras, there’s no shortage of strong opinions.

    One of the debates that gets the most diverse responses is how often people wash their denim jeans.

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    Still, some people wash and dry them after every wear while others will hand wash and never hang dry. With all these significant differences of opinion, there must be a correct answer somewhere, right?

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    The former CEO of Levi Strauss, Chip Bergh, has stepped up to set the record straight on when and how to wash your jeans. He caused a stir in 2014 when he said he only washes his jeans once a year, but it was for environmental reasons more than hygiene.

    He later clarified his thoughts in a blog post, “The Dirty Jean Manifesto” he posted to LinkedIn.

    “I made this provocative statement because I believe strongly in what our brands stand for: quality, durability and lasting products made sustainably. I also said it because I believe we don’t need to wash jeans as often as most people think we do,” Bergh wrote.

    “We learned that an average pair of jeans consumes roughly 3,500 liters of water — and that is after only two years of use, washing the jeans once a week,” Bergh wrote. “Nearly half of the total water consumption, or 1,600 liters, is the consumer throwing the jeans in the washing machine. That’s equivalent to 6,700 glasses of drinking water!”

    To add to the problem, denim jeans are often manufactured in places where water is scarce, such as India, Pakistan, Mexico, China and parts of California.

    CEO offers clarification on his comments

    Bergh spoke with CNBC’s Christine Tan and clarified his thoughts on jean cleanliness.

    “True denim heads, people that really love their denim, will tell you to never put your denim into a washing machine. So that’s what I do,” Bergh explained. “If I drop some curry on my jeans, I’m gonna clean it. But I’ll spot-clean it. And if they get really gross you know, if I’ve been out sweating or something and they get really gross, I’ll wash them in the shower.”

    However, when Bergh washes his jeans in the shower, he does it while wearing them and washing them with soap. The image that the scene conjures is of a cowboy bathing in a cartoon, clothes on and all.

    There are a lot of different opinions on how often one should wash and dry their jeans and many of them boil down to personal preference. But the debate on the topic has brought up one very big point we should all consider: when choosing how often we wash our jeans, a big part of the decision should be considering the amount of water we use.

    This article originally appeared three years ago. It has been updated.

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  • Gen Xers share 17 nostalgic dishes they ate growing up—and still make for dinner
    Photo credit: Image via Reddit – A family enjoys dinner during the 1970s.
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    Gen Xers share 17 nostalgic dishes they ate growing up—and still make for dinner

    From sloppy joes to pizza bread, these dishes still slap.

    Emily Shiffer

    Upworthy Staff

    Generation X (those born between 1965-1980) grew up eating classic Americana meals. During the 1970s, comfort meals like tuna casserole and salmon roquettes were popular meals.

    Gen X also grew up eating some pretty unhinged (but all the more yummy) sandwiches. These meals are steeped in childhood nostalgia.

    And to this day, Gen Xers are still fond of their favorite dishes they grew up eating. Together, they discussed on Reddit their most-loved home-cooked dishes that they still whip up, starting with sloppy joes.

    Here are 17 iconic Gen X comfort meals to keep in mind the next time you make dinner:

    @genx_shawn

    🤤😂 Top 10 Things ONLY GenX Knows the Taste Of… #genx #over50club #genxtiktok #over40 #genxcrew #generationx #genxers #genxtok #over40club #over50

    ♬ original sound – Shawn | GenX

    “Breakfast. We will have a ‘breakfast for dinner’ at least a couple times a month. Yum!” – fadeanddecayed, KddKc

    “Pizza bread! My mom would cut Italian bread into pieces, put butter and garlic salt on them, then pour some spaghetti sauce on them, cover with mozzarella cheese, and broil for like ten or fifteen minutes. Super easy and quick to make and so tasty. I’m sure my mom loved that I was so into something that took roughly zero effort for her to make.” – hornybutired

    “Grilled cheese and soup.” – reincarnateme

    “Meat loaf. I use 2 pounds ground beef, replace bread crumbs with minute rice, add 1 pkg beef soup flavoring, chop an entire onion for it, and mix BBQ sauce into mixture. Oh, important: do not overmix! Place all ingredients into bowl, then mix quickly 10 or 12 swirls of a large spoon. Grease loaf pan, carefully place mixture in, pat down & bake about an hour. (Extra info: for even better flavor, mix the night before, pat into loaf pan, cover with plastic, put into fridge overnight. Remove from fridge about an hour before baking. BE SURE TO REMOVE PLASTIC WRAP! [Esp. If in Pyrex glass loaf pan])” – jehardt, AbbyM1968

    “White guy tacos.” – najing_ftw

    “Skillet dinner. Kielbasa, bell pepper, onion, spuds in a cast iron pan. One dish. Easy peasy.” – UnimportantOutcome67

    “Chicken pot pie or chicken ala king.” – sattersnaps

    “Fried catfish, greens, and red beans and rice.” – User Unknown

    “Shepherds pie, technically cottage pie if it’s ground beef. Homemade enchiladas, usually made as a layered casserole instead because I don’t have time to roll them. Pork chops with mashed potatoes and veggies.” – XerTrekker

    “Fried rice with chicken or pork leftovers.” – AlternativeResort181

    “Hot hamburgers: hamburger patty open face on Texas toast thickness bread, cover with fries then cover that with brown gravy. Wife’s variation is hamburger patty over rice with brown gravy.” – EnricoMatassaEsq

    @past_archives

    American Gen X Foods That Kids Today Can’t Understand#nostalgia #childhoodmemories #backtochildhood #90s #2000s #usa #80s #90skids #80schildhood #capcutforus #capcut #capcutpioneer #America

    ♬ original sound – Past Archives

    “Stuffed peppers. I make it much more easily by cooking it all in one large frying pan ‘deconstructed’. Sauté onions garlic and ground beef, add cut up peppers, tomatoes or tomato sauce, sometimes a little spinach, then add separately cooked rice, salt and pepper and serve. It comes together pretty quickly and tastes just as good as stuffing and baking peppers in the oven.” – Affectionate-Map2583

    “Macaroni and cheese with cut up hot dogs. Seriously, that’s what I ate tonight.” – Dazzling-Walrus9673

    “Homemade Stroganoff casserole. Ridiculously easy to make. Ingredients:

    1.25-1.5 lbs. Ground Beef
    1 each of large white onion, green pepper, and red pepper
    1 can mushroom pieces, drained and rinsed
    12 oz. Bag of wide egg noodles
    1 can cream of mushroom soup
    16 oz. Sour cream
    Worcestershire Sauce
    Louisiana Hot Sauce
    White or Black Pepper
    Panko bread crumbs

    To Make: Preheat oven to 360 degrees. Worcestershire, hot sauce, garlic powder, and pepper are all to taste, depending on how much flavor and punch you want it to have. Cook noodles per instructions. Drain. Peel and slice onion (not diced), core and cut peppers into strips Brown meat, onions and peppers along with liberal amount of Worcestershire; garlic, pepper, and hot sauce. Add mushrooms. Cook until meat is fully brown, onions are translucent and peppers are tender. Drain. Combine drained meat, etc. with whole can of soup, half of the sour cream. Gradually add noodles into the mix. Add sour cream as needed to maintain consistency. Add Worcestershire, hot sauce, and pepper to taste. Dump into large, deep Corning dish or whatever. Cover too with bread crumbs. Cover and bake for forty minutes.” – CynfullyDelicious

    This article originally appeared last year. It has been updated.

    This article originally appeared last year. It has been updated.

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  • Heckler flirts with comedian on stage and it turns into a surprise masterclass on romantic chemistry
    Photo credit: Canva – Female comedian (left) Male audience member (right)
    ,

    Heckler flirts with comedian on stage and it turns into a surprise masterclass on romantic chemistry

    “… and, that is how I met your mother.”

    Heather Wake

    Dealing with hecklers just comes with the territory of being a comedian. But flirting with them? That wasn’t something Rebecca Reingold had prepared for. 

    On March 11, the New York City-based stand-up comic uploaded a recent set to her Instagram aptly captioned “We found love in a hopeless place (a comedy club).”

    In the now-viral clip, Reingold shared a bit about not being “good” at flirting with men, saying that she would inadvertently “be mean” to them “because they liked it.”

    Playful roasting turns into something more

    rebecca reingold, comedy, stand-up comedy
    Microphone against a blurry backdrop Photo credit: Canva

    Then, during the set, someone from the crowd must have been talking too enthusiastically, because Reingold playfully called them out for being loud. This someone, a man, responded that he was with his parents at the show, to which Reingold quipped, “You look bad. Your parents look a lot younger than you.”

    Without missing a beat, the man in the audience responded that, given the logic she gave just moments earlier, she must like him, since she was throwing shots at him. 

    “Oh yeah, you’re right! That does mean I like you! You were listening. Oh my god, I’m in love,” said Reingold, blushing. “You’re so annoying but so loveable so its so tough, you know what I mean?”

    The Internet wastes no time weighing in

    Over 16 million viewers later, and people were applauding both Reingold’s ability to go with the flow, and this mysterious man’s mad game. Many were hoping that this became an actual meet-cute. 

    “Damn she really turned red when she realised he listened.”

    “You handled this so well 👏🙌”

    “… and, that is how I met your mother.”

    “The fact that he did not drop the ‘I’ll shut up in exchange for your number’ line is mind boggling to me.”

    “So when’s the wedding. Lol”

    Romantic antagonism IRL

    Perhaps people were rallying for this interaction to lead to romantic entanglement because it resembles the ever-popular enemies-to-lovers trope found in countless rom-coms and romantasies. This dynamic of building attraction through animosity and tension makes for great entertainment…but does it make for healthy relationships in real life? The annoying but accurate answer is, of course: it depends.

    Primarily, it depends on a) whether both partners are enjoying the teasing and b) whether the jokes are landing in sensitive territory. If both those parameters are met, it can become its own love language. If not, then it can foster resentment. 

    This can obviously become even more complicated when it comes to flirting, since there is already a lot of indirect language happening between strangers. But at least in this case it looked like everyone was having a good time.

    Sadly, it has yet to be revealed whether or not Reingold and this heckler ever did connect after the show. We’ll just have to wait and see. In the meantime, be sure to give her a follow on Instagram to stay tuned on both her comedy stylings and, perhaps, her love life.  

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