Jimmy Kimmel Live / YouTube Blake Shelton
“The Voice” coach Blake Shelton is not holding back. In a February 27 interview on “Jimmy Kimmel Live”, host Kimmel asked the nine-time “Voice” champion what it was like returning for his 23rd and final season on the show, and Shelton wasted no time teasing his fellow coach Kelly Clarkson, who trails him with the second highest number of wins at four.
“Kelly Clarkson actually got me fired,” Shelton joked, “NBC stands for ‘Nothing But Clarkson’, I’ve found, because she’s on every late night show, she’s got the daytime show.”
“Does Kelly have a bulldozer?” host Kimmel responded (calling back to a joke Shelton made earlier in the interview after revealing that he owned a bulldozer, where Shelton said, “You’re not crap in country music unless you have your own bulldozer”).
“She didn’t make it in country music. She’s a pop star, so she has a nice electric vehicle,” Shelton barbed.
See the interview clip below.
Blake Shelton Shared a Story About Drinking With Kelly Clarkson
Despite being known to tease each other both on and off the set of “The Voice”, Shelton and Clarkson have been good friends for years, with Clarkson being a featured artist on Shelton’s 2012 Christmas album, “Cheers, It’s Christmas”.
In a January 30 video from Access Hollywood, Clarkson appeared for an interview with Mario Lopez and Kit Hoover over a glass of wine. Before they got into the interview, Lopez and Hoover showed Clarkson an old clip of Shelton sharing a funny story from a night drinking with Clarkson from years before at Clarkson’s Nashville home.
“She had gotten into the wine pretty heavy,” Shelton said, “and the reason that I remember this is because she was wearing a white shirt, that by the end of the night, it looked like she had been coloring Easter eggs on her shirt… it looked like she had been in a car accident with a wine bottle open in the car.”
Clarkson owned up to the story, agreeing with Lopez that she was a “physical drinker”, but she also defended herself, saying, “In fairness, he’s talking about years ago. I had just had a child, so I hadn’t had alcohol in months. It wasn’t that I had a ton, I just couldn’t handle it, so I got very inebriated.”
Blake Shelton & Kelly Clarkson Both Have Connections to Mega Mentor Reba McEntire
Season 23 of “The Voice” premieres on NBC on Monday, March 6 at 8 p.m. Eastern, and the show has revealed that this season will feature country music star Reba McEntire as the Mega Mentor, helping all four teams prepare for the Knockout Round, and both Shelton and Clarkson have unique ties to the singer.
McEntire was originally asked to be a coach on season one of “The Voice”, but turned it down, not knowing if she would be able to be critical toward contestants. Her spot was later offered to Shelton, who accepted, and later brought McEntire in as his season one Battle Round mentor.
McEntire was also Clarkson’s mother-in-law for a short time, as McEntire was married to her manager Narvel Blackstock from 1989 until 2015, while Clarkson married Narvel’s son Brandon Blackstock in 2013 (eventually splitting in 2022).
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