Season 29 of The Voice premieres tonight with several twists to the new season. One of which is that there will only be three coaches: Kelly Clarkson, Adam Levine and John Legend. The reason for it is that the season is being labeled “Battle of the Champions,” and this group of coaches are all past winners.
“We are all veteran coaches, we’ve all won this show and we’ve all done the show quite a bit, so we’ve all got great experience,” John told reporters in a group interview. “We all know what we’re doing, so that means the competition for artists was really intense. It was hard to convince someone to join your team when you’ve got these other two amazing coaches.”
And Kelly agrees, “I’ve never been more shocked in the Blinds because I literally thought people were either going to totally go with you [John] and then they went with [Adam], or the opposite. It was weird. That was crazy.”
And the interesting thing for all three coaches, who by now have learned what works when pitching artists to join their teams is that this season, those things didn’t necessarily work.
“The thing is you don’t know what’s going to trigger something,” John continued. “One artist I lost because he saw Kelly crying to Céline Dion. Then one artist, I lost to Adam because her kid came out and her kid loved Maroon 5 so much. Little things that you just never know what’s going to work with each artist. These two are just excellent choices and so every time I was like, ‘I could lose to either one of them.’ So, you’ve got to give it your best shot.”
Related: Watch Kelly Clarkson Storm the Stage for a Hug in The Voice Premiere: ‘What a Gift’
Kelly added that she felt it was about connection, but it was a season where it wasn’t obvious what that connection would be.
Kelly ClarksonPhoto by: Trae Patton/NBC
(Photo by: Trae Patton/NBC)
“There were times we were very shocked at where someone went,” she said. “After singing with one of us, they picked a different coach. It happened to all of us. We thought they were going somewhere and they didn’t go, so it’s it really is a hard season. There were random connections that we would have with artists this time that I didn’t really see in other seasons quite as much as I saw this season. I really do feel like every artist in our team could have gone with any other coach. I think it was just these small little connections they’d have for whatever weird reason.”
The one thing that was easier in the Blind Auditions was all three coaches had a shot at getting country artists on their teams because neither Blake Shelton nor Reba McEntire were options.
“The distribution to the teams this year was very even,” Adam said.
“With the absence of the cowboy, it made it so country was more evenly distributed,” John agreed.
Tune in on Monday night at 8 p.m. ET/PT on NBC to find out. Streams next day on Peacock.
Next, The Voice Returns for Season 29 With New ‘Battle of Champions’ Format and Fan Favorite Judges
This story was originally published by Parade on Feb 23, 2026, where it first appeared in the TV section. Add Parade as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
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