San Quentin Nurse Dee Dee Simon Is Hoping to Earn Her Parole With Her 'America's Got Talent' Performance
Heidi Klum’s Live Golden Buzzer winner Dee Dee Simon is hoping that her performance tonight on America’s Got Talent will get her paroled from her 19-year sentence as a nurse at San Quentin and launch her career as a fulltime singer.
“I always wanted to be a fulltime singer, but life happens, and you have to take care of your family,” Dee Dee told Parade in this exclusive interview. “There’s always something, somebody needs you, somebody gets sick. But if I get an opportunity at this point in my life to fulfill my dream, I’m going to take it. I’m not letting anything stop me, no illness, no anything, I am going to do it. So, yes, I will parole. The guys already think I’m going to parole. They made a big sign that says, ‘Thank you for your 19 years.’”
Dee Dee sang her way into the AGT finale by putting her own unique spin on Teddy Swims’ "Lose Control!" Heidi said she got swept up in the emotion of the performance and that’s why she hit her Golden Buzzer, sending Dee Dee straight through from the live shows, allowing her to skip the semifinals.
“I tap into all my songs emotionally because that’s the only way I can tell the story,” Dee Dee said. “Each song has a story, and I want to tell the story. I’m always telling the story about something that is going on in my life or in the world.”
Which means we can expect another moving performance from Dee Dee tonight, during which she will most likely end up by kicking off her shoes again. Part of the reason is so that she doesn’t have to worry about stumbling on stage but the other part is it helps her express herself.
“I like going out there looking all cute with the heels and stuff, but I really can’t express myself,” she explained. “I may want to run across the stage, but I’ll be thinking about footing. Everybody keeps asking me am I going to take my shoes off and I’m like, ‘Well, I’ve always taken my shoes off when it’s time to take them off.’ It has to be time.”
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There will be 10 acts vying for the America’s Got Talent Season 19 title and $1 million prize and despite knowing that people who haven’t won their reality shows have gone on to successful careers, like Jennifer Hudson, who finished seventh on American Idol, Dee Dee says she needs the win.
“I need to win,” she said. “And I need her career. I need them both. Okay? You know what? Everyone keeps telling me Jennifer Hudson is an EGOT [Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony winner]. She’s like the most successful out of all of the entertainers that I know of from American Idol. I would love to have a successful career after this because I believe I need that in my life.”
During our Zoom chat, Dee Dee also talked about how much the break between the live shows and the finale helped her, the reaction she got from the men at San Quentin after her appearance, where she’s been performing while working as a nurse, and how she wants to donate some of the money if she wins the $1 million to an Alzheimer organization that helps care for her mother.
Photo by: Trae Patton/NBC
Was having time off a good thing? Or do you think or not being in front of America for a whole week might put you at a disadvantage? How are you looking at this?
I loved having the time off. The stress is high in this game. It’s a high stakes game. So, I appreciated the rest. I was so happy with the rest. I wanted to be in America’s face this week, but I needed the rest.
I know you can’t tell me what song you’re singing, but what went into your decision on the song that you will be doing?
I give my list of songs, and it really goes by what can get licensed. So, they give me a song that they think is a great singing opportunity for me and I embrace it. I’m just like, “Me and this song are going to be married for the next ten days.”
You’ve appeared on AGT twice -- your audition and the live show. What’s the most fabulous thing that’s happened to you since you’ve been exposed on a national stage?
The best thing that happened to me was when I returned to work. I didn’t really know how much emotion that it brought my job. The guys that are there until they get released, I didn’t know how much I touched their lives. I didn’t know how much it gave them hope. And the morale around the whole institution, all of California, all the prisons, is just all the way up. They are just so supportive. So, the morale is what touched me the most because they are hopeful.
In the 19 years that you’ve been working at San Quentin, have you done gigs outside of that?
Yes, I have a band. I call the band The Truth because I call myself Dee Dee Simon The Truth. I do perform around the Bay Area; I perform back south when they want me to come to sing because they see me online singing. People have asked me to come out to sing at their shows, their concerts. So, I’ve done all of that. But AGT is a big stage. I want to continue on this big stage.
Photo by: Greg Gayne/NBC
Something I want to say, going to work for San Quentin was a way for me to secure a career and have a future. And those guys had to be incarcerated for me to have a future. Now we’ve turned it around to where they have classes, schools, everything inside the prisons so now they’re building their future to leave the prison. So, it’s the best time to leave right now. Things are worked out.
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One of the things and I don’t know why you said it when we were talking on the carpet, but you said you wanted to go home and lose weight. Was that just in the moment of craziness or is that something you thought you actually needed to do?
That’s something I actually need to do. I’m going to tell you, when I come to Pasadena, I’m out here walking at least two miles a day. It’s so safe out here. I just can walk and walk and walk and walk. But, no, I’m trying to eat healthy, it just doesn’t work. I’m trying. I try to exercise but I just get tired and go to sleep. So, yes, I need to lose some pounds.
What was it about AGT that inspired that? Was it standing next to Heidi Klum?
Oh, my God, they look amazing. Standing next to them on stage, I look ten times bigger and I was like, “Oh, this is the Hollywood look, I’ve got to get it together.” I say 20 pounds. But I just need my rice and my macaroni and cheese, my greens and cornbread.
The prize for this is $1 million. If you should be the winner what are your plans for the money?
To move out of the hood. I want a garage. I want to donate some money to the Alzheimer’s Services of the East Bay in Berkeley where my mom goes in the daytime for four hours. I want to donate money to them because I think that they do great work, and it needs to be fixed up. They have a broken window in the back and I’m like, “Oh, my God.” There’s a lot of things they need, and I want to donate money to them, as well. I want to definitely move up the hill, up the hill. I love Oakland but I’ve just got to move up the hill. I want to have a safe environment where I can walk.
Who are your musical icons?
Oh, my goodness, Gladys Knight is who I grew up listening to at the house parties in my house. I want to meet her. I sing her songs all the time. Everybody says I sound like her. Well, not sound like her, but they can tell that that’s who I was [influenced by]. Betty Wright, who’s passed away. I would love to meet Babyface, I would love to meet David Foster and sit at a piano with him and he’ll make me this monster record. I would love to also meet 50 Cent, so I could get into some films. And I would love to hang out with Dr. Dre because he needs a female on his team, too.
That’s quite a list. Hopefully, your performance tonight will open some doors for you and get you the representation you need to meet these people, or maybe somebody will just contact you on social media, it does happen.
I know, I’m waiting. I’m looking at my social media and going to my messages. I’m like, “Where are you guys?”
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Your mom was in the audience before. Is your family going to be here Tuesday night?
They’re coming. They should be here and, yeah, I’m very happy about that.
Photo: Trae Patton/NBC
Your mom has dementia you said. So, does she know what’s going on when you’re up there on stage singing?
She knows I’m performing. Then I have to remind her, “Mom, this is a contest.” She says, “A contest? Well, you’ve got to win.” But then she’ll forget that she was there, and I have to play it over and over and over again to her so that she’ll know. Because she’ll see it and be like, “Well, where was I?” and then she’ll show on the camera and say, “Mom, we were on TV.”
She was singing along with you last time. So, was she a singer, as well? Is that how you got into music?
She does sing, but she doesn’t sing out. But when she’s with me or she’s there in the kitchen with me, she sings right along with me. So, everybody notices now that, “Oh, your mom can sing.” I say, “Yeah, she just never sung.”
America's Got Talent returns next tonight at 8 p.m. ET/PT on NBC for the final performances of Season 19. The results of America’s vote will be announced on Tuesday, Sept. 24.
