At Phuket’s Naka Weekend Market, Nene Royal learned how to win an audience one passerby at a time. Long before television cameras followed her, the young musician was busking there with her bands, playing rock and metal covers for locals and tourists. She had started learning guitar at seven, teaching herself from online videos. The night market gave her somewhere to put those lessons to work.
In 2026, at 16, she carried that experience onto the America’s Got Talent stage. Her audition—a fierce rendition of The Cranberries’ “Zombie”—revealed what makes her such a compelling performer: a powerful rock voice and phenomenal command of the guitar, each driving the other forward. The performance raced across social media. According to NBC, its clips drew hundreds of millions of views across YouTube, TikTok and Instagram within days, making it the season’s most-viewed audition.
Virality might have introduced Nene to the world, but her next performances showed she was no one-song sensation. She took on Muse’s “Hysteria” in the callbacks, then brought Soundgarden’s “Black Hole Sun” to the live quarterfinals. Guitar World praised that performance’s standout guitar solo, while judge Sofía Vergara marveled at how well Nene could both sing and play. Mel B praised her vocals, guitar work and stage presence before sending her straight to the final with the Golden Buzzer.
There was something striking in the contrast. Offstage, Nene appeared quiet and modest; with a guitar in her hands, she could command an arena-sized television stage. Her virtuoso rock playing was not an accessory to her voice. The riffs, solos and sheer confidence of her performances were central to why audiences kept watching.
For the final, Nene transformed The White Stripes’ “Seven Nation Army” into another showcase for her rock instincts. On the results show, she shared the stage with Linkin Park for “The Emptiness Machine.” Then came the announcement: the teenager who had once played for weekend-market crowds in Phuket had won America’s Got Talent Season 21.
It is a remarkable distance to travel, but the through-line is clear. From the Naka Weekend Market to the biggest stage of her young career, Nene Royal won people over the same way: by picking up a guitar, finding her voice and making it impossible to walk past.
