Spoiler alert! This story discusses the fifth night of Blind Auditions on The Voice’s 24th season, which aired October 9.
Gwen Stefani hasn’t been shy about dropping her husband Blake Shelton’s name on The Voice this season — the first to not feature the country music star on its coaching panel — and the strategy has proven to be successful. The ‘90s rocker has actually been able to steal some country artists away from superstar Reba McEntire, and on the latest night of Blind Auditions, the new coach took a page out of Stefani’s book by recalling her connection to another former longtime coach of The Voice — Kelly Clarkson — when Angelina Nazarian auditioned with an early Clarkson hit.
The 17-year-old caught the attention of both Reba McEntire and Niall Horan with her rendition of “The Trouble with Love Is,” and the country music legend had no shame in sharing how she’d first met Kelly Clarkson on the finale of a different singing competition, when the woman who would become her daughter-in-law won the first-ever season of American Idol. McEntire told Angelina Nazarian:
I love you singing a Kelly Clarkson song. When she won the competition she was in, they told her that she could pick anybody to sing with her on the finale, and she chose me, and that’s when I met her. So it makes me feel really good that you chose a Kelly song today.
What a sly way of sneaking in there not just that she, like Gwen Stefani, also has a connection to a successful former coach of The Voice, but that she was the artist Kelly Clarkson picked out of anybody else to sing with in her big moment. These Season 24 coaches certainly shouldn’t sleep on Reba!
So far this season, we’ve heard The Voice hopefuls cover Reba McEntire’s “Fancy” and Blake Shelton’s “God’s Country” (but nothing from John Legend’s catalog, as he is infamous for not turning for his own songs). This, however, was the first Kelly Clarkson cover and therefore Reba McEntire’s first chance to flex her own personal connection to a former coach.
The “Does He Love You” singer was formerly married to Narvel Blackstock, the father of Brandon Blackstock, whose divorce from Kelly Clarkson was finalized in 2022. Reba McEntire and Clarkson may no longer be married to the Blackstocks, but The Voice coach had only praise for her former daughter-in-law’s talents, saying on the show:
Anybody who picks a Kelly Clarkson song, they are either very talented or very crazy. Well Angelina, she’s very talented. She’s just ready to blossom.
Her tactics worked, too, because Angelina Nazarian became a member of Team Reba, and I have no doubt Kelly Clarkson would approve of the cover. You can see the full audition below:
The Season 24 teams are really starting to come together, and with Gwen Stefani shamelessly dropping her husband’s name to attract artists, I think it’s only fair that Reba McEntire be able to draw from her own familial connections. We’ll have to see if this behavior continues as the season goes on. The Voice airs on NBC at 8 p.m. ET Mondays and 9 p.m. ET Tuesdays.