Heavy/Getty Blake Shelton and Kelly Clarkson
For the first time since leaving “The Voice” in 2023, former coaches Blake Shelton and Kelly Clarkson will return to the show for the season 25 finale on May 21, 2024, according to NBC.
The music superstars will join a handful of other famous past coaches to help mark the milestone of 25 seasons aired since the singing competition’s debut in April 2011.
Multiple Past Coaches Will Appear on Season 25 Finale With Blake Shelton & Kelly Clarkson
Photo by: Trae Patton/NBCPictured: (l-r) CeeLo Green & Adam Levine
Past coaches from “The Voice” who will join Shelton and Clarkson on the season 25 finale, per NBC, will include CeeLo Green and Adam Levine, who were part of the original coaching lineup with Shelton. Also expected to attend are Niall Horan, Jennifer Hudson, Nick Jonas, and Gwen Stefani, who not only married Shelton after they met on “The Voice,” but is returning to coach on season 26.
NBC has not revealed what the alumni coaches will be doing on the season finale. For Shelton’s final show after 23 seasons on “The Voice,” which he said he left to focus on family and his music, Levine and Green returned to wish him well and performed separately on the show.
The season 23 finale, which aired in May 2023, turned out to also be Clarkson’s final show on “The Voice,” but there wasn’t a formal send-off for her. That summer, she moved with her kids from Los Angeles to New York, where she now hosts her talk show, “The Kelly Clarkson Show.”
Clarkson made the move after several stressful years that included a nasty divorce, being sued by her former father-in-law, and dealing with stalkers in L.A. She has been open about the stress of splitting in 2020 from her ex-husband Brandon Blackstock, with whom she shares daughter River Rose and son Remington. Though her divorce from Blackstock was finalized in 2022, they are still battling over finances in court.
In October, she told USA Today that she needed a fresh start, which included leaving “The Voice.”
“I’ve learned a lot about what I’m capable of handling, and also what you should not handle,” she told the outlet. “That was me saying ‘bye’ to ‘The Voice’ and having this big move. I love that family, but I was like, ‘I’m struggling. I can’t smile anymore. I don’t feel like smiling.'”
Blake Shelton Has Said He’d Only Coach ‘The Voice’ Again With His Original Crew
GettyThe original cast of “The Voice”
Though Shelton will make an appearance on the season 25 finale, it will take a lot more for him to return to coach another season of “The Voice.” In April, he told ET that he’d only return with his original castmates.
“If they were ever able to put together the original four coaches again, maybe (I’d return) for one season, a one-off,” he told the outlet. “That would be fun for me… That would be something I would be interested in doing.”
Though Green and Levine might be willing to return, the hardest one to convince would be the fourth original coach, Christina Aguilera, who appeared on the first three seasons and then seasons five, eight and 10.
In 2018, she told Billboard that she was done with the show for good, calling it an “energy sucker” and comparing it to “a churning hamster wheel.”
“I didn’t get into this business to be a television show host and to be given all these (rules),” she told the outlet. “Especially as a female: You can’t wear this, can’t say that. I would find myself on that show desperately trying to express myself through clothing or makeup or hair. It was my only kind of outlet.”
Aguilera added, “It became something that I didn’t feel was what I had signed up for in Season 1. You realize it’s not about music. It’s about making good TV moments and massaging a story.”