John Legend Scores First ‘Voice’ Win With Singer Maelyn Jarmon
John Legend scored his first win as a coach on The Voice with singer Maelyn Jarmon, his only singer left in the top four. Fellow coach Blake Shelton had the remaining three singers for the season, who were up against Legend’s sole competitor.
The Season 16 finale of the series pitted the only non-country singer, Jarmon, against fellow artists Gyth Rigdon, Dexter Roberts, and Andrew Sevener. Legend can now add The Voice coaching winner to his accolades, including his EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony) series of awards.
Although Shelton has six wins under his belt during the show’s 16-season run, it was Legend who took home the title with Jarmon, whose powerhouse vocals were a force to be reckoned with from the beginning of the competition.
“When you have Maelyn on your team, she’s supposed to win The Voice. Her voice is supposed to win,” Legend proudly said of the singer to Entertainment Tonight. “That’s why it’s called The Voice.”
Legend participated in some trash-talk following the competition, noting the feelings he had for Shelton and his triumph over one of the original Voice coaches during the winner’s press conference after the show, reported People.
“I really love Blake and I’ve really enjoyed getting to know him this year. He’s a very arrogant bastard,” Legend quipped, reported People. “I had a feeling he was going to kiss someone’s a** after this show and I was right.”
Jarmon’s win led Legend’s wife Chrissy Teigen to quip about the power her husband’s winning singer had over him to her millions of followers.
this is literally the happiest I’ve ever seen John ever???? https://t.co/NNrwQWs4Se
— chrissy teigen (@chrissyteigen) May 22, 2019
Jarmon’s win was all the sweeter due to her backstory, which helped propel the singer forward in the competition despite some setbacks that other performers might not have been able to overcome.
People reported that at 2 years old, Jarmon had an operation where she had tubes inserted in her ears to help with recurring ear infections. The procedure, noted the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, is known as tympanostomy tube insertion surgery. It is the most common childhood surgery performed in the United States and physicians at CHOP surgically implant ear tubes in more than 4,000 children each year.
In Jarmon’s case, the tubes ended up damaging her eardrums and left her deaf in her right ear and with only 80% hearing in the left ear. Despite what others might have considered a disability, Jarmon turned to music, beginning her professional career at the age of 13.
The Voice Season 16 finale also featured performances by Taylor Swift and Brendon Urie, BTS, The Jonas Brothers, Halsey, Khalid, OneRepublic, and Hootie & the Blowfish.
The Voice airs on NBC.
