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Bob McGrath, the Sing Along With Mitch tenor who portrayed the friendly music teacher Bob Johnson for more than four decades as an original castmember on Sesame Street, has died. He was 90.
“Hello Facebook friends, the McGrath family has some sad news to share,” McGrath’s family posted on his Facebook page Sunday (Dec. 4). “Our father Bob McGrath passed away today. He died peacefully at home, surrounded by his family.”
Born on a farm in Illinois, McGrath was one of the four non-Muppet castmembers when Sesame Street debuted on public television stations of Nov. 10, 1969.
With no acting experience, producers always told him to be himself. Over the years, he sang dozens of the show’s signature tunes, including “Sing, Sing a Song” and “The People in Your Neighborhood,” and shared many a scene with Oscar, the grouchy Muppet voiced by Caroll Spinney.
McGrath and Oscar “were sort of like The Odd Couple,” he told Karen Herman during a 2004 conversation for the TV Academy Foundation website The Interviews. “Oscar was always having a rotten day, and I’m ‘Mr. Nice Guy.’”
He remained with the legendary kids show until it was announced in July 2016 that he would not return for its 47th season, though he continued to represent Sesame Street at public events.
“It took me about two minutes before realizing that I wanted to do this show more than anything else I could ever think of,” he said in 2015. “I was so overwhelmed by the brilliance of … Jim and [fellow Muppeteer] Frank Oz and everything else that was going on.”
McGrath and Loretta Long (as nurse Susan Robinson), Matt Robinson (her husband, science teacher Gordon) and Will Lee (candy store owner Mr. Hooper) taped five one-hour pilots that were shown to hundreds of kids across the U.S., and they went on to shoot 130 one-hour episodes during Sesame Street‘s first season.
“We knew we were on to something good almost from the get-go,” he said.
One of five kids, Robert Emmett McGrath (named for an Irish patriot) was born on June 13, 1932, on a farm between the towns of Ottawa and Grand Ridge. His mother, Flora, was a pianist who could play by ear, and when he was 5, he began performing in local theaters. At 9, he won a talent contest at an NBC radio station in Chicago.
McGrath had his own local radio show while he attended Marquette High School, and as a voice major at the University of Michigan School of Music, he became the first freshman soloist of the glee club.
After graduation in 1954, he was attached to the Seventh Army Symphony in Stuttgart, Germany, during his two-year stint in the service. Then, while working on his master’s degree in voice at the Manhattan School of Music, he was hired to teach music appreciation and theory to youngsters at the St. David’s School.
For the next two years, McGrath sang Gregorian chants at funerals; recorded with Igor Stravinsky; performed in the chorus for Leonard Bernstein, Robert Shaw and Fred Waring; did jingles for commercials; and sang on such TV shows as the Hallmark Hall of Fame and The Bell Telephone Hour.
In 1961, McGrath joined the new series Sing Along With Mitch in the 25-man chorus. The NBC program was headlined by Mitch Miller, a classical oboe player and top Columbia Records A&R executive who conducted an orchestra and chorus performing old-time songs. Viewers were presented with lyrics at the bottom of the TV screen so they could sing along, which made for a “great family experience,” McGrath noted.
Two years into the show, McGrath sang “Mother Machree” for a St. Patrick’s Day telecast and was promoted to featured male soloist at double his salary. (Leslie Uggams, who started on the show when she was 17, was a featured female soloist.)
After Sing Along With Mitch concluded its four-year run in 1964, Miller and company performed at the Desert Inn in Las Vegas and then on a 30-date tour of Japan, where the program had aired on NHK television.
“We had four and five thousand teenagers at every concert,” McGrath recalled. “We were quite amazed — why are these teenagers listening to all these old songs? They watched the show because they were very anxious to learn English; we sang clearly, and the [lyrics were on the screen].”
When he sang in Japanese, he was greeted with chants of “Bobu! Bobu!” and learned that there were McGrath fan clubs all over the country.
After the tour ended, he returned to open the Latin Quarter and Copacabana nightclubs in Tokyo and would come back often during the next three years for concerts, albums, commercials and TV shows. He even performed at a small private dinner for Japan prime minister Eisaku Sato.
In the U.S., “voices like mine are not really in season,” he told The New York Times in 1967. “But [in Japan], they say an Irish tenor is just right for sentimental Japanese songs.”
McGrath said he couldn’t “pretend to speak Japanese” but studied song lyrics “phonetically and then with the meaning matched to the words.”
In 1965, he performed “Danny Boy” in Japanese on The Tonight Show — that went over big in his concerts — and later appeared on the game shows To Tell the Truth and I’ve Got a Secret.
McGrath said that his two favorite moments on Sesame Street were the 1978 episode “Christmas Eve on Sesame Street” that riffed on The Gift of the Magi and a poignant 1983 segment that addressed the death of Lee’s Mr. Hooper. (Lee, with whom McGrath had shared a dressing room, had died in December 1982 of a heart attack while the show was on hiatus.)
“On recording day, we rehearsed everything for several hours, totally dry with no emotion, just saying the words,” he recalled. “When it was time to go to tape, we filmed with full, raw emotions, which were very difficult to contain. We were barely able to keep it together, with tears in our eyes, because we were really reliving Will’s wonderful life on Sesame Street for all of those years.”
“When we finished filming, [writer-director] Jon Stone wanted to redo one little section. We got about two minutes into the segment before Jon told us to forget it. We couldn’t take it, we were all just breaking up. So what you see in the episode is the first and only take of that whole show.”
The sweater-loving McGrath also appeared in Sesame Street specials as well as in the films Follow That Bird (1985) and The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland (1999); wrote several children’s books, including 1996’s Uh Oh! Gotta Go! (about potty training) and 2006’s Oops! Excuse Me Please! (about manners); released albums like 2000’s Sing Along With Bob and 2006’s Sing Me a Story; and performed with symphony orchestras all over the country.
He also hosted the annual CTV telethon Telemiracle, which benefits people with special needs in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan, every year but one from 1977 until 2015.
Survivors include his wife, Ann, whom he married in 1958 — she was a nursery school teacher at St. David’s when they met — three daughters and two sons, and eight grandchildren.
In his TV Academy Foundation interview, he talked about the “fame” that Sesame Street brought him.
“I had a little boy in a store one time and he grabbed my hand, I thought he had mistaken me for his father,” he recalled. “I said, ‘Hi,’ he said, ‘Hi.’ I said, ‘Do you know my name?’ He said, ‘Yeah, Bob.’ I said, ‘Do you know where I live?’ He said, ‘Sesame Street.’ … I said, ‘Do you know any of my other friends on Sesame Street? He said, ‘Oh, the number seven.’ I figure, I’m right up there with the numerals.”
He also described his “all-time favorite letter” that came to the show: “This parent wrote in and said their little 4- or 5-year-old girl had come running into their room waking them up one morning startled and said, ‘Mommy! Daddy! My pillow!’ And they said, ‘What is it?’ And she said, ‘It’s a rectangle!’ It was the discovery of her life.”
This article originally appeared on The Hollywood Reporter.
Kenan Thompson, Kel Mitchell and orange soda reunited for the most recent episode of Saturday Night Live in a sketch that sees Keke Palmer and the two comedians caught in a soapy love triangle storyline with a pregnancy twist.
Thompson and Mitchell, who became teen stars thanks to their work on All That and later their beloved titular roles in the 1996 Nickelodeon sitcom Kenan and Kel, appeared on the Dec. 3 episode as part of a sketch reimaging the show decades after it went off the air. Dubbed Kenan and Kelly, SNL host Keke Palmer is the one who pitched the faux series, which offers an aged-up dramatic spin on the comedic shenanigans the original kids show was known for.
The sketch opens with Palmer selling Thompson on the reboot that will see her replace Kel as “Kelly” in the title card. That’s right before the SNL cast member reveals that what he thought was going to be a “Jordan Peele-produced streaming series” was nothing of the sort.
“I had already sold the show before I even met Kenan,” Palmer hilariously reveals in a confessional. “I told the producers we wrote it together.”
Returning to the original series’ ridiculous antics, Palmer puts her own spin on the world of the popular ’90s sitcom — including swapping out Kel’s famous catchphrase “Aw, here it goes!” with “Oh, here comes the bus!” But she also adds darker, more dramatically soapy elements, including a store shooting and pregnancy storyline.
“Keke was gunning for an Emmy Award so she wanted gritty, dramatic moments in it,” Thompson says in his own confessional. “I thought, ‘That won’t work.’ And I was right.”
After Palmer — who incorporated her newly announced pregnancy into her character’s storyline — delivers over-the-top monologues about being pregnant with Thompson’s child and having a distraught, fatherless childhood, Kel seemingly arrives to reunite with his old screen partner but is overcome by his love for orange soda.
“Well, we just started and I think we have a tone issue, but people seem excited about it, I guess,” Thomspon remarks before fellow SNL cast member Devon Walker offers a spot-on impression of Mitchell’s character — braided wig and all.
The skit ends on a dramatic and comedic high note, with Kel getting shot while attempting to stop a store robbery and Palmer revealing the baby is actually his, not Kenan’s.
“The show is not good, but Jordan Peele called us,” Thomspon says before Mitchell adds, “He wants us to do a sequel to Nope.”
The reunion is the latest from the former onscreen duo, who also reunited at this year’s Emmys, appeared onstage at the 2019 NHL awards together and starred in a Good Burger skit on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in 2015.
This article originally appeared on The Hollywood Reporter.
Ahead of the premiere of Saturday Night Live season 48, the late night comedy show lost eight of its castmembers, the biggest cast overhaul in a generation.
At the end of season 47 in May, Kate McKinnon, Aidy Bryant, Kyle Mooney and Pete Davidson signed off of the sketch series for the last time. Their departures were followed by Alex Moffat, Melissa Villaseñor and Aristotle Athari in the summer and, finally, Chris Redd in September.
A few weeks before season 48 premiered in October, SNL shored up its ensemble with four new castmembers, who would join the show as featured players for the 2022-23 season: Marcello Hernandez, Molly Kearney, Michael Longfellow and Devon Walker.
According to standout Bowen Yang, having the new castmembers around has been “so seamless.”
“They’re just such a burst of fresh energy and also something familiar in terms of how quickly they’ve become part of it,” Yang told The Hollywood Reporter. “I look around, and I see Marcello, I see Michael, I see Devon, I see Molly, and I’m like, ‘Oh, these are my new friends.’ I feel they’ve been here forever.” He added that they’ve each also had great moments in the first few shows of the season.
Kenan Thompson echoed that sentiment, explaining that by the second half of the season, the four of them will already have a great deal of experience. “It’s a lot, and I’m glad that they have each other to kind of come into the storm with,” he told THR. “They’ve been navigating pretty good together.”
Mikey Day, who’s been on SNL since 2013, thinks the new castmembers are “really cool” but admitted it has been an adjustment, sharing that it’s different but also exciting.
“I definitely miss my friends and seeing them every week, but all our new castmembers are really cool,” Day told THR. “[It] feels like you bond very quickly on that show. In the summer, you’re like, ‘We’re gonna have new kids. Will it be the same?’ But then, a few days in, you’re like, ‘Oh OK, it’s this show again.’ So you know, it’s fun. Every season, you just keep going. You just get in the grind of it, and everything kind of starts to feel like the show.”
As for the new members, joining SNL has been an emotional experience in which they’ve already learned a lot. Walker noted that probably once a week he gets “misty” thinking about the fact that he made it onto the show. He’s also been given a helpful piece of advice, which is that there’s always another episode, so it’s not worth taking anything to heart.
“The words I’ve been living by are to be patient and to work,” Hernandez told THR. “And I love Kenan and Colin [Jost] for being there and being the veterans that talk to you and give you good advice. So yeah, I’m grateful.”
This article originally appeared on The Hollywood Reporter.
Fox’s The Masked Singer just wrapped its eighth season, so Billboard is going back through every winning artist who unmasked themselves for the grand reveal.
Hosted by Nick Cannon, the singing competition series premiered on Fox in 2019 as a way for celebrity contestants to perform anonymously in head-to-toe costumes while clues about their real identity are given throughout the competition before they’re unmasked one by one.
Judges-turned-detectives Ken Jeong, Jenny McCarthy Wahlberg, Nicole Scherzinger and Robin Thicke have used clue after clue to get closer to uncovering who’s hiding behind each mask, but the final reveals always leave their jaws on the floor.
Below is a complete list of which mystery musician unmasked themselves to reveal the winner at the end of each season.
‘Tis the season for Saturday Night Live‘s December shows, and the iconic comedy series announced its official lineup of hosts and performers for the next three episodes on Tuesday (Nov. 29).
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As previously announced, the December schedule will kick off with SZA as musical guest and Keke Palmer as host on Dec. 3. “Can’t believe this is happening lmao . I plan on acting a f—ing fool . See you soon New York,” SZA shared on her Instagram account on Nov. 13 following the announcement.
The week after, on Dec. 10, Only Murders in the Building co-stars Steve Martin and Martin Short will co-host, as Brandi Carlile takes the stage as musical guest. The performance will mark her second time on the SNL stage, but this time, she’s fresh off seven Grammy nominations for her latest album, In These Silent Days.
“The greatest @nbcsnl of the year! I would fly to New York City just to witness this from the audience. But instead, I get to sing my songs on my favorite show,” Carlile tweeted about her upcoming appearance alongside the two comedy legends.
To wrap up 2022, Elvis star Austin Butler will make his Saturday Night Live debut as host on Dec. 17, with Yeah Yeah Yeahs joining him as the performing act. The band is nominated for two Grammys following the release of their new album Cool It Down.
Saturday Night Live airs every Saturday live on NBC at 11:30 p.m. ET/8:30 p.m. PT. For those without cable, the broadcast will also stream on Peacock, which you can sign up for at the link here. Having a Peacock account also gives fans access to previous SNL episodes as well.
It’s fitting that Jesse Collins is showrunner of the 50th iteration of the American Music Awards – which is set to air live from the Microsoft Theater at L.A. Live in Los Angeles this Sunday, because he just may be the most in-demand producer of music awards shows, and music on television in general, since Dick Clark, who created the AMAs in 1973.
His 2022 credits as executive producer include the Super Bowl halftime show starring a bevy of hip-hop stars (for which he won his first Emmy Award), the Grammys (for which he was Emmy-nominated), the BET Awards and the BET Hip-Hop Awards. And right after the AMAs is the Soul Train Awards, followed in early 2023 by the Golden Globes, the Grammys and the Super Bowl halftime show starring Rihanna.
Just days before the AMAs, Collins was feeling pretty confident. He has a strong host in Wayne Brady, a broadly popular Icon Award recipient in Lionel Richie, and a show that has a little something for everybody. The show will have tributes to Richie and Olivia Newton-John — both past AMAs hosts and artists whose AMAs totals are in double digits — as well as performances by new stars Dove Cameron and GloRilla. The Richie tribute is centered on a medley of his songs performed by Stevie Wonder, 72, and Charlie Puth, 30. That’s the kind of range the AMAs look for.
Looking at your bookings, you seem to have something for everybody.
Listen, it’s the American Music Awards. Like the nation, this is supposed to be the melting pot of music where everybody comes together under one tent and celebrates excellence in all genres. We just try to do our best to give you the full tapestry of music. You want to get your new stars. You want to get your up-and-comers. You want to get your big stars like P!nk and Carrie Underwood. You just want to make sure that everybody’s getting a little piece of everything, and that to me is what the AMAs are all about.
That was always Dick Clark’s philosophy.
Let’s say you’re not that familiar with what the new pop or R&B or hip-hop or country acts are. You can watch the AMAs and you can learn about them. You can find out who is going to be your next big star. So maybe you walk in saying, “I’m not really a fan of a certain genre,” but then you see an artist in that genre and suddenly you’re a fan.
Since this is the 50th AMAs, you’re going to have a recurring element where artists speak to their musical inspirations. What form will that take?
We’re trying to spread it out throughout the show and make it organic. So it could be in presenter copy or our host Wayne [Brady]. Perhaps winners will do it. There are some ways that we’re doing it musically. We’re just trying to spread it out throughout the show so you get that story in different incarnations.
How did you decide on Wayne Brady as a host?
I [have] worked with Wayne a lot over the years. He’s just one of the most versatile people I know. First of all, he’s an amazing host, but then he also is an incredible singer, rapper, dancer, improv performer. He’s incredibly funny, so when you’re doing a show like this you want to get a host that has so many skill sets that no matter what you throw at him, he can succeed.
How did you decide on Lionel as your Icon Award recipient?
Lionel has a long history with the AMAs. He has hosted, he’s performed, he’s won [18] awards [counting this one]. That’s been in the works for a long time. I have to credit Mark Shimmel, one of our producers, who has a long relationship with Lionel. [Mark has] been on the AMAs with Larry [Klein] for many years. Last year we knew that we wanted for the 50th show to honor Lionel Richie.
Dick Clark died in 2012, which was the same year you founded your company [Jesse Collins Entertainment]. Did you ever meet him?
No, I never met him. I just grew up watching him on TV. Obviously, I was a big fan of everything that he created. Unfortunately, I never got to meet him.
Was he a particular role model or inspiration?
Listen, I grew up watching American Bandstand and Soul Train – so both him and [Soul Train creator] Don Cornelius were heroes of mine. So, to find myself in this awards show business is incredible. I never thought I’d be producing this show.
Has [longtime dick clark productions executive] Larry [Klein] filled you in on Dick Clark stories?
Larry has been a great mentor throughout this whole process, even before I got on this show. Larry is the gold standard of variety producers. He has great stories. All the things he’s been through with this show, it’s pretty incredible.
Do you ever say “What would Dick do?” or “What would he think of what we’re doing to his baby?”
Larry sometimes will say, “If Dick was here, this is what he would want this show to be. This is what he would do in this moment.” And Barry Adelman as well. He’s one of our producers. He was with Dick for many years and knew Dick from the AMAs, the Globes and all the shows. Those guys definitely make sure that the spirit of Dick Clark lives on.
This is the second AMAs you’ve worked on. You’ve also been on the Grammy team for a number of years. Back in the day, it wouldn’t have been possible to work on both shows. They were highly competitive with each other.
Fortunately, the shows are not on the same day, so people don’t have to choose. The AMAs and the Grammys are both awards shows, but their histories are different, their legacies are different and today the shows are different – and I think that helps each one. They have different points-of-view, definitely different personalities. It’s like picking between your kids.
One reason the shows were so competitive back then is they often aired just a month apart – sometimes just two weeks apart. Now, they’re a few months apart.
When Pierre [Cossette, longtime executive producer of the Grammys] and Dick were going back-and-forth about these shows, music had a longer run. You had the one song that was the song that an artist sang on TV and that performance was coveted. Now, music cycles are much faster. Music comes out at a higher frequency. So, someone can come on the AMAs and have an unbelievable performance and then go on the Grammys and do something completely different and shock the world again. I think that’s part of the reason that the attitudes have changed between the shows.
Last year’s AMAs was the most social telecast of 2021 with 46.5 million interactions. What do you attribute that to?
First of all, our host [last year], Cardi B, is one of the most electrifying people on social media. She really knows how to ignite that base. Between that and BTS and all of the other performances, and the way we designed the show, we were really able to take advantage of what social media can do for you in an awards show environment.
With all the shows you work on, you must have an amazing team supporting you in your company.
Dionne Harmon is not only president of the company, she’s right here leading the charge on the AMAs. The show would definitely not come together without her. Jeannae Rouzan-Clay is a great producer as well. Between the three of us, it allows us to really try to make the best show possible. [All three are credited as executive producers on the AMAs, as is Larry Klein. In addition, Collins is showrunner.]
Have you announced all of the performers?
We have not announced them all. We still have a couple of surprises.
Most of the acts that you have announced fall into the broad genres that were always the backbone of the show – pop/rock, soul/R&B and country. Now, in addition, you also have hip-hop (GloRilla and Lil Baby) and Latin (Anitta). So, I think Dick is up there looking down and saying ‘you’re keeping it going.’
I hope so. With all of those genres that you mentioned, that music can be heard anywhere in America today. So, the show is living up to the title that he gave it.
This conversation has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.
If dunking on anti-LGBTQ rhetoric is a skill, then Maren Morris is an expert at this point.
The country star posted a comment on Instagram on Tuesday calling out actress Candace Cameron Bure for her recent comments on “traditional marriage” and queer characters. Writing under a post from LGBTQ influencer Matt Bernstein, Morris said “Make DJ Gay Again,” a reference to Bure’s most famous role as DJ Tanner on Full House and the 2016 reboot, Fuller House.
Morris is far from the only star to call the actress out — JoJo Siwa posted an Instagram on Tuesday calling Bure’s comments “rude and hurtful,” and GLAAD president and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis issued a damning statement saying it was “irresponsible and hurtful for Candace Cameron Bure to use tradition as a guise for exclusion.”
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The backlash came after Bure gave an interview to the Wall Street Journal regarding her departure from Hallmark, her new executive role at conservative network Great American Family, and what fans could expect from the Christmas movies she is set to star in there. When asked whether or not the network would include LGBTQ couples in their projects, Bure said they would “keep traditional marriage at the core.”
Since the backlash, Bure published a statement via her Instagram, where she said that it “breaks my heart that anyone would ever think I intentionally would want to offend and hurt anyone.” The actress also attempted to shift blame toward media coverage of her comments, saying that media companies were “seeking to divide us, even around a subject as comforting and merry as Christmas movies.”
Stopping short of an apology and never directly addressing the community she offended, Bure instead insisted that she “loves” everyone. “To the members of the media responsible for using this opportunity to fan flames of conflict and hate, I have a simple message: I love you anyway,” she wrote. “To those who hate what I value and who are attacking me online: I love you. To those who have tried to assassinate my character: I love you.”
Naturally, the star’s statement wasn’t sufficient for many in the community. Out singer-songwriter Wrabel commented on Bure’s post, saying that he didn’t buy her claim to love. “love is not typing ‘i love you.’ love is action. love supports. love listens. tries to understand,” he wrote. “if jesus was here today he’d be flipping tables at that network.”
This isn’t the first time that Morris has weighed in on LGBTQ issues this year. Following some openly transphobic comments from Jason Aldean’s wife Brittany, Morris joined fellow country star Cassadee Pope in calling her out, dubbing Brittany “Insurrection Barbie” in a tweet. When Fox News talking head Tucker Carlson called Morris a “lunatic” and a “fake country music singer” for her comments, the “Middle” singer created t-shirts that read “lunatic country music person,” and later donated over $100,000 worth of proceeds to GLAAD’s Transgender Media Program and Trans Lifeline.
Check out Morris’s comment here, as well as Bure’s official statement below:
After Candace Cameron Bure’s latest interview, JoJo Siwa is calling out the Full House actress’ comments as nothing more than a straight flush.
In an Instagram post on Tuesday (Nov. 15), Siwa slammed Bure’s comments in a Wall Street Journal interview where the Fuller House star said she wouldn’t include LGBTQ couples in upcoming Christmas films on her conservative-leaning network, Great American Family. “Honestly, I can’t believe after everything that went down just a few months ago, that she would not only create a movie with intention of excluding LGBTQIA+, but then also talk about it in the press,” Siwa wrote. “This is rude and hurtful to a whole community of people.”
In her interview with the Journal, Bure spoke about her new executive role with Great American Media, in which she will produce and star in a series of Hallmark-style Christmas films. When asked in the interview about whether she would include LGBTQ characters in her work — as Hallmark did for the first time earlier this year — she said, “I think that Great American Family will keep traditional marriage at the core.”
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Siwa was not the only person to call Bure out on her exclusionary comments. GLAAD issued a statement from their president and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis, in which she called out Bure’s intentional ignorance. “It’s irresponsible and hurtful for Candace Cameron Bure to use tradition as a guise for exclusion,” she wrote. “If GAF’s plan is to intentionally exclude stories about LGBTQ couples, then actors, advertisers, cable and streaming platforms, and production companies should take note and seriously consider whether they want to be associated with a network that holds exclusion as one of its values.”
Ellis also added that she was open to having a conversation with Bure on the topic. “I’d love to have a conversation with Bure about my wife, our kids, and our family’s traditions,” she said. “Bure is out of sync with a growing majority of people of faith, including LGBTQ people of faith, who know that LGBTQ couples and families are deserving of love and visibility.”
Siwa was also joined by actress Hilarie Burton, who called both Great American Family and Bure “disgusting” for their anti-LGBTQ comments. “Now they’re just openly admitting their bigotry,” she wrote. “I called this s–t out years ago when [CEO Bill] Abbott was at Hallmark. Glad they dumped him. Being LGBTQ isn’t a ‘trend’ … There is nothing untraditional about same-sex couples.”
This is far from the first time that Siwa and Bure have had words in public — earlier this year, the former Dance Moms star claimed that Bure was the “rudest” celebrity she’d ever met in a viral TikTok, with Bure later explaining that she had declined to take a photo with a then-11-year-old Siwa.
Check out Siwa’s Instagram post below.
What do you get the guy that already has everything? Gwen Stefani is not entirely sure but has at least one hilarious gift idea in mind for her husband Blake Shelton‘s retirement from The Voice.
Ahead of Monday’s (Nov. 14) live shows on the singing competition, the No Doubt singer caught up with Entertainment Tonight and revealed that staff members on the program have been trying to figure out what to get Shelton after he completes season 23 of The Voice.
“This is crazy ’cause everyone’s coming after me for ideas, ‘What should we do?’ and it’s hard, you know, he has everything,” Stefani told the outlet. “But I think his favorite thing would be a bag of corn, like honestly, he would be so thrilled. Or fertilizer or something like that.”
Shelton announced his departure from the long-running NBC singing competition back in October after serving as a judge for 12 years. The “Boys ‘Round Here” singer, who has been present for all seasons of the show, crowned a champ from his team in eight of the show’s previous 21 seasons. Stefani previously remarked that she feels for viewers of the show in light of his impending departure come season 23. (Shelton will join The Voice veteran Kelly Clarkson for season 23 alongside newcomers Niall Horan and Chance the Rapper.)
“He’s brought so much joy. He’s so talented,” the “Hollaback Girl” singer told Entertainment Tonight last month. “I know people just wait around to laugh and watch him on TV, so I feel sorry for everybody [that] he’s gonna be gone.”
“It’s so weird Blake Shelton is leaving The Voice. I wasn’t ready, you know what I mean? I have to figure out who this new Blake’s gonna be,” she added. “I’m just so proud of him.”
One of television’s harshest judges has a soft spot for Britney Spears. In an interview with E! News published on Monday (Nov. 14), Simon Cowell gushed about working with the pop star while they were judges on The X Factor USA for its second season, and revealed that she was an incredibly intelligent force to have on the competition show.
Cowell noted that Spears’ decision to join The X Factor did not come lightly. “We spent so long on the phone talking about X Factor before we did it,” he told the outlet. “There’s a side of Britney a lot of people don’t know. I mean, I was on the phone to her two or three hours every time. She was super smart, really lovely ideas about how to launch someone else’s career, which is critical if you’re going to be a judge on one of these shows. So I had a fantastic relationship with her.”
The English reality TV personality also made a plea to Spears directly. “If you’re watching, Britney, and we make a show, please come back and do it with me. It would be amazing. I adore her,” he said. “She really is interesting and she’s so talented.”
Season two of The X Factor USA premiered on Fox on Sept. 12, 2012, and aired through Dec. 20, 2012. Spears and Demi Lovato replaced judges Nicole Scherzinger and Paula Abdul on the show that season, with Cowell and L.A. Reid rounding out the judging panel. Fifth Harmony finished in third place, while Tate Stevens won first.