Former America’s Got Talent: Extreme contestant Jonathan Goodwin is suing producers after a horror accident left him paralyzed.
The daredevil, who rose to fame on Britain’s Got Talent in 2019, suffered life-changing injuries during rehearsals for AGT Extreme in October 2021.
Goodwin, who’s engaged to Sherlock star Amanda Abbington, was left in a wheelchair after the terrifying incident while performing a stunt which would see him hang upside down 30 feet in the air between two suspended cars and escape from a straitjacket.
However, the cars were released too early and he was crushed between them as they caught on fire.
In a lawsuit filed this week in Los Angeles Superior Court, Goodwin named Fremantle Media North America, Syco Entertainment, NBCUniversal and others as defendants.
As reported by TMZ, in the lawsuit he claims NBC and producers kept making the stunts bigger and bolder to encourage people to tune into AGT.
He has alleged that the show controlled, designed and interfered with the performance of the stunts, noting he was ‘catastrophically injured’ and nearly lost his life.
He claimed he suffered third degree burns, dislocated his spinal cord and lost his left kidney while also suffering fractured legs, ribs and shoulders.
Goodwin reportedly accused the show for failing to follow industry safety standards, alleging that they hired unqualified staff to design and oversee the stunt, which he alleged wasn’t tested with a crash dummy.
The former escapologist retired as a stunt performer after his life-altering injuries, and now uses his platform to share advice and ‘positive thinking’, while he denies any blame for the almost fatal incident.
Answering questions about his stint on the show, which has since been scrapped, he responded to a fan who asked: ‘What caused the accident? Improper set up or did you just f up?’
Goodwin replied with a selfie, pointing to himself, and wrote: ‘I didn’t do anything wrong.
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