Blake Shelton Hints He May Quit ‘The Voice’ In 2018
Blake Shelton and Adam Levine have been staple coaches on The Voice for the past 12 seasons, but it turns out that Shelton isn’t planning on sticking around forever.
Shelton was asked how long he plans to stick around on the NBC show in a new interview where he made the surprising revelation that he could actually be waving bye bye to the talent search and quitting his coaching role sooner rather than later.
It’s already been confirmed that both Shelton and Levine will be with the series until at least Season 14 in early 2018, but Blake is now revealing that that could actually be the end of his coaching stint after what will be seven years on the show.
“I think at least a year,” Blake replied when asked by WKRO 93.1 FM when he’s planning on leaving his red revolving chair, before coyly adding of quitting The Voice, “look, anything can change” when it comes to the hugely popular talent search.
Shelton then clarified that he’s definitely planning to stick around until at least the first round of shows in 2018 because he wants to still be a coach when his good friend Kelly Clarkson joins the panel, but suggested that he doesn’t know about his future with the series beyond that.
“I’d like to at least go far enough to do that season coming up with Kelly as a judge,” Blake said of his coaching job, just days after he confirmed that Clarkson would be a judge on Season 14. “I think that’s gonna be a lot of fun to have her in there.”
Earlier this month, Blake posted a Facebook Live video confirming that Kelly would be heading to the show in 2018 in which the two joked about what’s going to be a friendly but pretty bitter rivalry once the former American Idol winner takes her seat alongside Shelton, Levine, and a third as yet unnamed coach.
“This person is a very near and dear friend of mine, this person is somebody that I consider to be family and this person is extremely talented,” Blake Shelton gushed of Kelly in the video ahead of her upcoming gig. “We have felt as a family at The Voice that this person would fit in perfectly.”
Kelly then joked that Blake needs to “watch out” and admitted in the social media video that she can’t wait to beat Shelton at the game he’s been playing since the series first debuted back in 2011.
The announcement that Kelly would be heading to The Voice as a coach also came shortly after NBC confirmed that Season 12 coaches Alicia Keys and Gwen Stefani would be moving on from the show to make way for returning coach Miley Cyrus and newbie Jennifer Hudson who will both be joining Blake and Adam this September.
Blake’s suggestion that his stint on The Voice may well be coming to an end in a year’s time could mean that fans won’t ever see the musician return to the show again.
The “Honey Bee” singer previously claimed that he had no plans to take a season off only return at a later date as so many coaches have done in the past.
Speaking to TV Guide in April, Shelton confirmed that he will never take a break from The Voice and will instead be quitting the show all together when he decides he’s run his course and it’s time to go.
“I won’t ever take a break from the show. I’ll either do it or I’m quitting,” Shelton said in the interview of his quitting plans when asked how long he plans on sticking around. Blake then joked, “or I’m going to get fired!”
Do you think Blake Shelton will be quitting The Voice after what will be 14 consecutive seasons in 2018?
[Featured Image by Jason Kempin/Getty Images]
