Although he was nervous, 29-year-old Filipino nurse Rodelle Borja brought the house down and got a standing ovation from all judges when he performed his rendition of Elvis Presley’s Can’t Help Falling in Love in the reality competition Ireland’s Got Talent.
The show shared Borja’s performance on its official YouTube channel on Saturday. In it, the nurse shares that he joined the talent competition to inspire stutterers like himself.
“Growing up with a stutter is quite difficult because I am not really that confident in expressing myself by talking,” he said. “I express myself more, and I express myself better by singing.”
“I still find it very difficult to talk, so I’d rather keep quiet. But when singing, I don’t keep quiet at all. I sing my heart out.”
Borja works in a nursing home in Dublin. When asked by judge Louis Walsh if he sings to patients, he said: “I do that almost every day and they seem to like it.”
Judging by the looks of judges Walsh, Michelle Visage, Jason Byrne, and Denise van Outen, they seemed to have loved Borja’s high notes too.
Watch his performance below:
After the performance, Borja received a standing ovation first from van Outen, then the rest of the judges stood and clapped for him while roaring cheers from the audience can be heard in the background.
“Listen. That’s for you Rodelle,” Walsh told the teary-eyed nurse.
He received “yeses” from all the judges and will move on to the next round.
“I was so nervous on stage but now I feel so much better after having four yeses from the judges,” Borja says in a video posted on the talent competition’s Twitter page earlier today.
“That was unbelievable, I didn’t expect it at all because I thought that I was going to commit a mistake somewhere in between, but thankfully I did not,” he added.
We love Rodelle, what a superstar ❤️ #GotTalentIRL pic.twitter.com/2AJCPhhYY2
— Ireland’s Got Talent (@GotTalentIRL) February 16, 2019
A number of Filipinos have impressed judges in international talent competitions. This includes 11-year-old Angelica Hale who, got two Golden Buzzers in different season of America’s Got Talent; Filipino beatboxer Neil Rey Garcia Llanes, who landed third place on Asia’s Got Talent Season 2; blind Filipina singer Katchry Jewel Golbin who finished at third place on La France a un Incroyable Talent (France has Incredible Talent); and Filipino girl group 4th Impact, which finished in fifth place on X Factor UK‘s Season 12.
