With its current season, The Voice is already shaping up to be another potential lock for Blake Shelton to walk away with the win to celebrate his 23rd and final season as a coach on the stalwart NBC hit. Obviously, fellow co-stars Kelly Clarkson, Chance the Rapper and Niall Horan will be attempting to spin the country crooner’s swan song into their own victories as they make it through the Battle Rounds. And even though he’s not on the show anymore, it sounds like former coach Adam Levine would be equally pleased to see any of those three competitors sending Shelton out the door on a loss. It’s like they always say: “You can take the Maroon 5 frontman out of the rivalry, but you can’t take the rivalry out of the Maroon 5 frontman.”
While Adam Levine would possibly enjoy living the rest of his life without ever having to answer questions about Blake Shelton again, Voice fans will never forget the pair’s competitive back-and-forth for the 16 years that the pop singer made himself at home in the big red chairs. As such, during one of Levine’s relatively limited nights out recently, he was asked by Entertainment Tonight for his thoughts on Shelton hanging up his hat for good, and he didn’t need to say very much to get his point across. In his words:
It's about time!
Could fans have expected anything else, really? Did anyone believe Levine would settle into a long-winded and praise-laden treatise on the sacredness of Shelton’s talents? Now that would be an April Fool’s Day gag for the ages. I guess he deserves credit for not repeatedly saying "Copycat!" over and over in the most nasal voice possible.
In truth, it’s likely that Adam Levine doesn’t give two hoots or a holler about what Blake Shelton does, as the dude is as busy as can be without juggling argumentative bromances. For one, he and wife Behati Prinsloo are still raising their third child, who was born in January 2023, after having spent a chunk of 2022 emerging from rumors of Levine cheating with Sumner Stroh. (The story was big enough to make the singer one of the year’s biggest trending musicians.) Plus, he and Maroon 5 kicked off their highly anticipated Las Vegas residency, which Levine’s fam went out to celebrate on its opening weekend. There are a few more April dates, with the band returning to Vegas for another two week stretch in late July/early August. Since The Voice will be done at that point, maybe Shelton can go join him on stage at Park MGM.
When Shelton finally does bow out after Season 23 has wrapped, the show will no longer boast any coaches who were there since the beginning, as the award-mongering musician has been the drawl-friendly glue keeping the show together for all these years. (Maybe that’s giving him too much credit.) Is it possible that Levine could return to the coaching chair for the first time in seven or eight years without his BFF there to poke fun at him?
While forming some of those hopes, relive some of the rivalry through the video below.
The Voice airs Monday nights on NBC at 8:00 p.m. Be sure to tune in to see how the NBC staple will be handling its voting process this season.
