Sofia Vergara Hypes up ‘America’s Got Talent’ Season 15 Premiere

Sofia Vergara is getting her fans hyped for the upcoming premiere of America’s Got Talent. On Tuesday, the Modern Family star posted a photo of her on set, along with a reminder that the reality competition series is back on NBC.

[America’s Got Talent] premiere day is FINALLY here,” Vergara wrote in the caption. “Tonight’s show is going to be amazing!” She also tagged host Terry Crews as well as her fellow judges, Howie Mandel, Heidi Klum and Simon Cowell. It was Cowell, who’s also an executive producer, that first announced the premiere date for Season 15 back in April. In the announcement, he said that the show “best in perseverance, creativity and optimism.”

Tuesday night’s premiere will also mark the first year that Vergara has joined as a host. Her and Klum, who’s returning to the program, will be replacing Gabrielle Union and Julianne Hough after their controversial exit back in November. After the two weren’t asked back after one-season stints, Union spoke out against the series, centering on Cowell in particular for contributing to a hostile and racist workplace. Initially, NBC refuted the charges before opening an investigation into claims made by both Union and Hough. The investigation had reportedly ended in January, though nothing has been made public regarding its findings.

Like scores of other productions, America’s Got Talent was forced to shut down back in mid-March in order to help slow the spread of coronavirus. Sources close to the series told The New York Post at the time that filming was suspended “out of an abundance of caution.” Like American Idol, the show did attempt to film without a studio audience, though producers abandoned that plan.

Prior to the shutdown, Klum had missed some tapings of the show due to illness and Vergara’s Modern Family co-star, Eric Stonestreet, had filled in for the supermodel in her absence. Klum thought she had food poisoning at first but grew more concerned after she’d begun showing symptoms of a cold. Though she was eventually tested for coronavirus, it proved difficult on Friday due to the lack of tests available in the U.S. However, once tests were obtained, both her and husband Tom Kaulitz both tested negative for the virus.