Blake Shelton was recently asked if he misses being part of The Voice, and the former coach gave a brutally honest answer. During an appearance on The Jennifer Hudson Show, the host inquired if Shelton wished he were still part of the NBC competition show. “Not yet. I did that for 23 seasons,” he responded. “To be totally honest about it, I wasn’t even planning on being there that long.”
“I was planning on wrapping it up around 20 seasons or 21 seasons,” Shelton confessed, noting that the pandemic was the main thing that caused him to stick around a little longer. “And then COVID hit, and then I didn’t want to walk out on the show in the middle of COVID, and them trying to scramble and figure out what to do. So I stayed. I didn’t have anything else to do anyway. So I stayed a little bit longer, but I stayed too long for me to now miss it.”
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Interestingly, Shelton also revealed that he got to keep a pretty cool piece of the set. “I got my chair,” he revealed. “I told them that it was the one thing I wanted – besides a bunch of money – to take home from The Voice was I wanted my red chair. So they did. They sent my red chair to Oklahoma.”
In 2022, Shelton announced that he would be leaving the show at the end of Season 23, which concluded earlier this year. “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,” The country music superstar wrote in an Instagram post last October. “It takes a lot of work, passion, and adult beverages (Ha!) to pull off a live show twice a week.”
“I have to give a huge shoutout to the singers-the ‘voices,’ who come on this stage season after season and amaze us with their talent and a special thanks to those who chose me to be their coach,” he continued. “It’s about y’all, the fans, who watch and support these artists, us coaches and everyone at The Voice who are chasing their dreams. It would not happen without you!” Notably, Shelton currently holds the record as the longest-serving The Voice coach in the show’s 12-year history.