The bizarre story of “America’s Got Talent” contestant Timothy Poe is getting stranger. He’s been accused of lying about being injured in Afghanistan during his audition, but he insists that his story is legit. Now, it turns out one of the photos that was shown in a montage during his audition was actually of somebody else. The actual solider is Staff Sergeant Norman Bone. He watched the audition after friends tipped him off about the photo, and he’s not happy about being roped into this.
He says, “The first thing that came to my mind was ‘Why would this lying [S.O.B.] do this?’ I’m absolutely furious. Been seeing red all day.” Bone says he’s never even heard of Poe before this, and is considering his legal options. Poe hasn’t commented, but for the first time, someone from the show has. A rep for the production company behind “America’s Got Talent“ says, “We sincerely apologize to U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Norman Bone for using a photo of him in our story on Tim Poe. It was supplied to us by Tim and used on the show in good faith. It has now been removed and will not be used again.”
So far, Poe has been full of explanations for the alleged lies, so of course he can totally explain why he sent the show a photo of a soldier that wasn’t him. He tells the New York Post, “I must have sent the wrong picture from my hard drive. I was trying to hurry and get the picture to them that I did not take the time to really make sure. I apologize. [The producers] kept pushing me and pushing me saying: ‘You need to put these out, you need to put these out.’”
Just when it seemed like Timothy Poe was surely lying in his “America’s Got Talent“ profile, the New York Post says he did send them his official retirement orders, and they confirm that he was injured.
The documents say Poe had, “an injury or disease received in the line of duty as a direct result of armed conflict or caused by an instrumentality of war and incurred in the line of duty during a period of war.”
The Post notes that the papers don’t give any other details on the injury.
An Army spokesperson says Poe was in Afghanistan for less than a month, and admits that their records are incomplete, so they can’t confirm where or when the injury took place.
