11-Year-Old Sadie Jo Schwefel Wows 'America's Got Talent' Judge After Winning PopCulture's Contest

Sadie Jo Schwefel's got talent! The 11-year-old country songstress is on cloud nine after winning PopCulture.com's Skip the Line contest to get first dibs at performing her own original song in front of the judges at an America's Got Talent audition.

The preteen came all the way from Wisconsin to Nashville, Tennessee to perform the song she wrote for a boy in her elementary school, titled, "Crush on a Boy," on the guitar. The song appears on her first country EP Watch Me.

"I'm very excited, I'm like shaking," she told PopCulture.com exclusively before her audition. "And we decided I was gonna do this like a couple months ago, so I've been practicing for a couple months."

This won't be the first time Schwefel has performed under pressure. At the Jefferson County Fair, the songstress won the Junior Amateur competition, eventually winning third place in the Wisconsin State Fair. She also opened for the band Road Crew this summer, she said, making her a seasoned pro at performing.

Her song comes right from the heart, her mom said, stemming from years back.

"In 5K, so when they were 5 years old, they've had this mutual little crush, and he gets really nervous and shy when she sings the song," she said. "But he knows it's about him."

Before packing up her guitar and traveling hundreds of miles to perform, Schwefel said she got a lot of encouragement from her classmates at school.

"Most of them say, 'Good luck!' and they are very encouraging and very nice," she said.

The up-and-coming star says she definitely would have auditioned even if she had to wait 10-12 hours like the rest of contestants, but her mom said she was grateful she didn't have to spend half a day in a crowded auditorium with her daughter.

"It would have been a challenge with an 11-year-old to be honest," She said. "So what a blessing, so we're very grateful."

After the audition, Schwefel was confident she brought it in front of the judge and the other contestants, modestly giving herself "an eight or seven" out of 10 on a performance scale.

"I just did what I always do and sing from the heart," she said, adding that while she hopes she makes it to the next stage of the audition process, she's "not ready" to perform in front of America just yet.

The NBC show kicked off its nationwide search for the most talented American on Nov. 5 in Orlando, Florida, and will premiere in 2018. Winners of the competition will get a $1 million prize as well as a number of performance opportunities.

Last season's winner, 12-year-old singing ventriloquist Darci Lynne Farmer of Oklahoma City, won a $1 million grand prize and headlined the sold-out America's Got Talent Live stage show inside the PH Showroom at Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino in Las Vegas from Nov. 2-5.

"America's Got Talent continues to get bigger and better each and every year," said AGT Executive Producer Sam Donnelly in a press release. "The show never fails to discover the best and most exciting acts the country has to offer. We literally change lives and make careers on the AGT stage. I encourage anyone who thinks they have a talent worth sharing to audition for this next season."

For more details on America's Got Talent auditions, visit AGTAuditions.com. For show information, visit nbc.com/agt.

Photo credit: Facebook / America's Got Talent