The Voice
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Niall Horan stopped by Hot Ones on Wednesday (March 16) to chat about his freshman season on The Voice while taking on the iconic “Wings of Death.”
Three hot sauces in, the former One Direction-er told host Sean Evans that rejecting hopeful singers is the hardest part of his new gig on the NBC reality show. “‘Cause I know what it’s like to be 16 and stood on a stage, and looking at some famous dude that’s got your future in his hands,” he said. “The easy part is pressing the red button, spinning the chair, saying how you like someone. But when the chair turns around and you’re not with them, how do you give them that rejection feedback? And that’s where I’ve struggled with it, but it’s full circle stuff.”
However, Horan was quick to admit there’s one person he wouldn’t have trouble saying no to as a coach: his 16-year old self auditioning for The X Factor. “I wouldn’t have turned,” he deadpanned before breaking out into a laugh. “Not for that guy. I was right place, right time. No, I don’t think I would’ve turned for myself, put it that way.
“I’d turn for me now!” the Irish singer-songwriter continued. “I’ve learned a lot, I’ve been around the block a couple of times, which is, a lot can be said for someone that’s 29. But yeah, I’d turn now. I wouldn’t’ve turned then.”
A longtime fan of the YouTube series, the “Heaven” singer, whose third solo album The Show drops June 9, handled the heat remarkably well — though he eventually broke out in the shakes when the time came to try the infamous sauce Da’ Bomb. “I’ve been nervous about this for about seven years,” he joked before taking a big bite.
Watch Horan make his way through all 10 sauces during his Hot Ones interview above.
Kelly Clarkson just put an end to Blake Shelton‘s fibbing. After the country crooner told one lie too many while speaking to a contestant on the Tuesday (March 14) episode of The Voice, his fellow judge made him take a lie-detector test — and he definitely didn’t pass.
It all started when Shelton fudged details of his athletic ability after hopeful Chloe Abbott revealed she’s a runner currently training for the Olympics. “I’ve been training for the U.S. curling team for a couple years now,” he said, earning disbelieving laughs from fellow judges Niall Horan and Chance the Rapper. “I just didn’t know how much different it is for track and field.”
Clarkson, however, wasn’t having it. “Is anybody else just sick of Blake lying?” she said, before instructing host Carson Daly to bring out a lie-detector machine.
One of the first things the “Stronger” singer wanted to know after Shelton was hooked up to the machine was whether he’d used a secret block on Clarkson. “I still don’t think that was me,” he replied, before getting exposed almost immediately by a flashing red “FALSE” sign.
“Am I truly your favorite coach?” Clarkson followed up.
“Absolutely,” he answered. But once again, he was deemed a liar by the equipment. “This thing doesn’t work!”
Clarkson gave Shelton a pass for that question, though, as the country star’s own wife, Gwen Stefani, was previously a Voice coach. But that’s when Daly went in with a below-belt question regarding the “God’s Country” singer’s pop-star spouse.
“Did Gwen marry you out of sheer pity?” Daly asked, to which Shelton finally answered honestly, “Probably.”
The OG Voice coach is currently competing for his last shot at winning, as he previously announced that this season would be his last on the show. With nine victories up his sleeve, the musician is the only coach to have been on the judges panel for all 23 seasons thus far of the competition series.
Watch Blake Shelton fail a lie detector test on The Voice above.
When a star is born, grab your sunglasses and step out the way.
Kate Cosentino, a 23-year-old talent from Kansas City, shone bright when she stepped onto NBC’s The Voice stage Tuesday night (March 14), for her Blind Audition.
It was a starry performance, judge Niall Horan would go on to say. He should know when he sees one.
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Cosentino covered Dionne Warwick‘s “I Say a Little Prayer,” doing so in her own pace, stripped down, and with an electric guitar. Though her outfit screamed “clown couture” (her words), Cosentino’s played with no fuss, going with a finger-picking jazzy style, and without overriding effects.
Kelly Clarkson turned first and led a domino effect, as Chance the Rapper and Horan swiftly fell for her charms.
“Amazing,” Chance said at the wrap. “You got such a cool vibe to you.” The hip-hop star paid tribute to her “full voice” which carries a “lot of joy that comes out of it.”
Clarkson moved. “You have such a pretty alto register,” said the country-pop star, “kind of like lullaby-ish. You really could go so many places.”
And with that, the sales-pitch was on.
Horan didn’t muck about. He opened strong: “Would you like to be on my team?” Her choice of song was an indication of high quality and standards. “You could go all the way. You’ve given us this really really famous massive hit that’s really tough to sing. There’s an already-made star in there. You’ve got this Italian confidence.”
Will this star being a shooting one, will it go supernova, or light the canopy for years to come
We’ll wait and watch. In the meantime, Horan will guide the artist into the next phase of the talent competition.
Watch below.
A new contestant hit The Voice stage on Monday night’s episode (March 14) to prove that being hearing impaired doesn’t mean she can’t still rock the mic.
ALI, a 24-year-old hopeful from Walnut, Calif., chose to audition for the spinning chairs with a cover of Roberta Flack’s classic title track to her 1973 album Killing Me Softly. “I heard he sang a good song, I head he had a style/ And so I came to see him and listen for a while,” she sang, with her very first vocal runs at the end of the stanza earning an immediate chair turn from both Kelly Clarkson and Chance The Rapper.
However, it was only after she wrapped up her audition that the singer revealed her hearing loss to the coaches. “A fun fact about me is I am hearing impaired,” she said. “I wear two hearing aids, I was born deaf. I’m so blessed to be able to share this.”
“What!? Oh my god, that’s crazy,” Clarkson marveled, later telling ALI, “Your runs were so intricate and cool and different. That’s a gift.”
Though he didn’t turn his chair, Niall Horan agreed with his fellow coach, saying, “You were amazing. But the second they turned, I knew you were set up,” he said, before getting an unexpected catch in his throat. “You are incredible,” he continued after maintaining his composure. “Any sort of adversity that you’ve had in your life, you are just jumpin’ hurdles here and it’s incredible to watch. So I wish you the best of luck, ALI.”
Watch ALI’s audition and find out who she picked as her coach above.
Harry Styles is so hot right now. Like, smoldering, earth-torching hot. The former One Direction singer had the top single on the planet last year with “As It Was,” lifted from his hit third album Harry’s House, which bagged Grammy Awards, Brit Awards and No. 1s, pretty much everywhere.
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Oh, and he’s currently playing stadiums across the globe, and starring in feature films. That kind of hot.
Laura Littleton captured a little bit of that heat when she stepped onto The Voice stage on Monday night (March 13) for the Blind Auditions. A native of Dickson, Tennessee, Littleton, a “country girl through and through,” took that early solo Styles song “Sign Of The Times,” added some country tones and immediately won the hearts of three judges.
When Kelly Clarkson used her block on country star Blake Shelton, it was game on.
As the performance wrapped, Clarkson praised the contestant’s energy. “I feel like you match mine,” she enthused. She also admitted she ought to have blocked Niall Horan instead, seeing as, you know, he played with Harry in 1D and, just maybe, Littleton is a Directioner.
Kelly lifted her sales pitch. “I feel like you’re gonna attract people from different genres. You just have all these cool, like, connections vocally. I was like, ‘this is like Dolly meets Florence and the Machine.’”
Horan took the mic and paid tribute to the “super unique” style of her voice, with its “natural shakes.” And, yes, he was into her song choice.
Littleton had a big decision to make. Go country, or go with a member of 1D?
In the end, she chose Horan.
Watch below.
Blake Shelton is saying goodbye to The Voice after the current 23rd season, but his former fellow coach Adam Levine seems to be the only one who isn’t sad about it.
“It’s about time,” Levine joked to Entertainment Tonight at the Vanity Fair Oscars After-Party on Sunday night (March 12). The musicians’ sat together in The Voice‘s spinning red chairs as coaches for 16 seasons before the Maroon 5 frontman left the show in 2019.
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Shelton announced his departure from The Voice back in October. “This show has changed my life in every way for the better and it will always feel like home to me,” he wrote in a statement posted to social media. “It’s been a hell of a ride over these 12 years of chair turns and I want to thank everyone at The Voice from NBC, every producer, the writers, musicians, crew and catering people, you are the best. It takes a lot of work, passion, and adult beverages (Ha!) to pull off a live show twice a week.”
As coach, Shelton remains the statistically best coach in terms of winning seasons — having crowned a champ from his team in nine of the show’s 22 completed seasons.
The country superstar, who has been on The Voice since it premiered in 2011, recently sat down with his fellow season 23 coaches Kelly Clarkson, Niall Horan and Chance the Rapper to reflect on why he has decided to leave the show. “I think I was close to calling it a day right when COVID hit and then, because of COVID, I didn’t want to walk away from the show and leave everybody in a bind,” Shelton revealed. “I mean, this show changed my life. I’ll stay until the world kind of gets back to normal.”
Chance the Rapper stopped by Kelly Clarkson‘s talk show on Monday (March 13) to chat about his first season competing against her on The Voice.
Wearing a denim bomber jacket with a faux-fur collar and one of his signature ball caps, the rapper appeared more than confident about the team he’s assembled for season 23 of the NBC reality series. “Do I think I’m gonna win The Voice? I’m pretty sure I’m gonna win,” he told Clarkson. “Yeah! You know I’m gonna win The Voice. … Yeah, my team’s fire.”
Chance brings a producer’s mentality to the coaching panel, which Clarkson admitted was a source of intimidation for her. “I will say, that’s been my favorite part, watching you,” the original American Idol winner told him. “Because I don’t know if I’ve ever really done it with a full-on producer before. You know what I’m saying? You’re a rapper, a singer and a producer.
“And it was interesting to do the Blinds with you ’cause I was threatened,” she continued. “‘Cause I was like, ‘Oh wait, what? I can’t do that, like, what he just did.’ It was cool. You were, like, producing during the Blinds, like, that was part of your pitch.”
So far, Chance has added sister trio Sorelle, Idol favorite NOIVAS and R&B crooner Magnus to his freshman team to compete against Clarkson, Blake Shelton and fellow newbie Niall Horan. Season 23 of The Voice continues this week with another round of Blind Auditions on NBC.
Watch Chance and Kelly go back and forth about their coaching strategies below.
Jimmy Fallon has what it takes. The late-night host crashed the The Voice to play an epic prank on coaches Blake Shelton, Kelly Clarkson, Niall Horan and Chance the Rapper on the Tuesday (March 7) episode by pretending to blind audition for them — and only one of them didn’t turn around.
The audition begins with the four coaches waiting expectantly as an anonymous contestant takes the stage, backs turned to maintain the long-running NBC singing competition’s trademark fully blind auditions. As the singer — who only the crowd can see is the famous face of The Tonight Show — begins to belt out Michael McDonald’s “I Keep Forgettin’ (Every Time You’re Near)” with a comically forced rasp, Clarkson, Horan and Chance exchange confused looks while Shelton listens skeptically.
It’s the “Stronger” singer who becomes the first coach to take a chance on the faux hopeful, followed shortly by Horan and Chance also hitting their red buttons. Each of them bursts into laughter upon turning around to find that it’s actually Fallon singing.
Shelton, however, remains unmoved. That is, until the Saturday Night Live alum walks offstage and presses the country star’s button for him. “You broke the rules!” Shelton jokingly scolds him, grinning when he sees Fallon’s face.
“I’m across the parking lot doing our show That’s My Jam,” Fallon says once the jig is up, before saluting Shelton specifically. The “God’s Country” singer recently announced that this season of The Voice will be his last, after nine wins and more than a decade of coaching contestants on the show.
“I had to come over and say ‘hey,’ buddy,” Fallon said. “Twenty-three seasons, congratulations.”
Before heading out, Fallon pledged his allegiance to Team Kelly. “I’m on Kelly’s team!” he said. “Thank you for turning around.”
Watch Jimmy Fallon prank The Voice coaches above.
No blind audition is the same. And precisely no singer on NBC’s The Voice has made an arrival quite like Kala Banham.
The 24-year-old Windermere, Florida native stepped onto the Voice stage Tuesday night (March 7), for a rendition of “Both Sides Now,” a song that appeared on Joni Mitchell’s 1969 album Clouds.
Banham kept her vocals in a velvety pocket, finding the emotional connection while never showing off.
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Kelly Clarkson and Niall Horan turned together, only the former One Direction singer was fast enough to trigger a block on the U.S. country artist.
Another new additional to the panel, Chance the Rapper, turned, leaving Blake Shelton the odd one out.
There were tears of joy from Banham’s folks, who were watching on, feeling the vibe, and Clarkson blasted the non-plussed Shelton with multiple volleys of “what are you doing?”
“What a perfect song,” enthused Clarkson. “You showed dynamic, to see you emote like that, you really felt the message and the words mean something to you. We would have been beautiful together. I’m going to steal you, mark my words.”
Horan praised her “impeccable” song choice, and her ability to show tenderness in the softer moments. “I haven’t got a singer like you on my team.” Then he stepped up his sales pitch.
“You are unbelievable,” the 1D singer said. “You’ve got such a storytelling voice, so sweet so beautiful. And the song choices that are available for you is huge.”
After learning some of her story, Chance praised Banham for having the “most unique voice that we’ve heard so far” which, he notes, is coupled with the “most control and range.”
Shelton offered his 5 cents (he wasn’t familiar with the song), and it was over to Banham to make the tough choice. Ultimately, she joined Team Niall.
Does Horan possesses the luck of the Irish? We’ll have to wait and see.
Watch the performance below.
Kelly Clarkson was reunited with her 2019 The Voice team member, Jej Vinson, when the singer returned for season 23 — this time in a group.
The trio, called Sheer Element, took the stage for the blind auditions on Tuesday (March 7), where they delivered a sleek rendition of Silk Sonic’s “Leave the Door Open,” complete with flawless three-part harmonies.
Their impressive performances got chair turns from Chance the Rapper, Niall Horan and Kelly Clarkson, whose jaw dropped when she saw her former team member Vinson. “What the hell!” she screamed upon seeing him.
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“He was Team Kelly on another season. He is incredible, that is insane,” Clarkson explained to her fellow coaches, before later telling the Sheer Element, “You’re incredible and I already love Jej’s voice. You’re so incredibly tight and you know your vibe. You’re not picking a coach to teach you anything about that. You’re picking a coach for song selection, and that’s really key.”
Horan also chimed in, noting that he turned his chair because the group’s performance “made me feel,” before adding that he has some experience in a group as a former member as One Direction. “I’ve been in a group. My favorite acts of all time are The Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, Boyz II Men. I feel that we could work very well together,” Horan shared.
Chance the Rapper also gave his pitch for the trio, sharing, “I can tell that you guys have done this together for a while because it sounds so tight. As an overall presentation, it was just insane.”
He continued, “I also produce music for a few different groups, and I think I could see exactly where you guys could go with your style, aesthetic and with the three of you guys as a group. So, if you want to win, come get down with Team Chance.”
Watch the full performance below, and be sure to tune into The Voice tonight (March 7) at 8 p.m. ET on NBC to see who Sheer Element chose as their coach.