Starting his 23rd and final season on “The Voice,” coach Blake Shelton says it’s about time he does nothing.
“This has been incredible, but it’s time, you know,” he said this week on “Today,” where he appeared with the other three “Voice” coaches for a joint conversation. “It’s time for not even what’s next. A little bit of nothing would be nice.”
Kelly Clarkson, Chance the Rapper and Niall Horan joined Shelton for the interview by “Voice” host Carson Daly, who handles features for the NBC morning show in addition to presenting the singing competition. Chance and Horan are new this season.
“When I came on as a coach on this show, I mean, everything in my life was turned upside down. And in a good way, you know?” Shelton said, referring to early 2011, shortly after he was invited to join the Grand Ole Opry and right around when he married Miranda Lambert, his second wife.
The cast of coaches at the time included him, Adam Levine, CeeLo Green and Christina Aguilera, a roster that would stand for three seasons before the door started revolving for a total of 18 full-time and two part-time coaches. Since then, 46-year-old Shelton’s presence has been the only constant on the show.
Levine, the second-longest tenured coach, bailed after Season 16. Clarkson has logged the third-most appearances, doing seven seasons so far as a coach after showing up in Seasons 2 and 13 as a part-time adviser.
Shelton and Lambert divorced in July 2015, when “The Voice” was between Seasons 8 and 9. Season 9 was Gwen Stefani’s second as a coach, and she announced her divorce from singer Gavin Rossdale in August 2015.
Stefani and Shelton, who didn’t know each other before meeting on the show in 2014, were fueling the rumor mill by Halloween 2015. Five years after that, they got engaged and were married in July 2021.
“I met my wife on this show,” Shelton told Daly on Monday. “It’s changed my life in every way it possibly can, from a personal standpoint.”
It’s also been a few more years of TV work than planned for Shelton, who said he was “close to calling it a day right when COVID hit” right after Season 18 hit the air in early 2020.
“I didn’t want to walk away from the show and leave everybody in a bind” during the pandemic, he said. “I mean, this show changed my life. I’ll stay here until the world kind of gets back to normal again.”
And as Shelton returns for the show’s 23rd season, which launched on Monday and continues Tuesday night on NBC, “normal” appears to be back: California’s state of emergency linked to the pandemic officially ended Tuesday.
Almost time to do a little bit of nothing — right after Shelton competes with Clarkson, Chance and Horan for his 10th victory as a coach.
