Blake Shelton Recalls ‘Embarrassing’ Childhood Pageants That Nearly Made Him Quit Singing

Before Blake Shelton racked up 30 No. 1 hits and a 23-season run on NBC’s The Voice, he was just a young boy in Oklahoma eager to perform on any stage that would have him. His mom, Dorothy, fully supported his talent and worked hard to find him local gigs. By age seven, Shelton was performing at beauty pageants, and even competing in some of them.

During an appearance on Q with Tom Power, Shelton hilariously looked back on those pageant days, calling them an “embarrassing” chapter of his early performing career.

“Can’t you tell by looking at me that I’m pageant material?” Shelton said with a laugh.   

While performing on the pageant circuit, Shelton had a few go-to songs, though looking back, he admits they may not have been the most appropriate choices for a young boy.

“I had two signature songs back then… the only boy in the entire pageant,’ he recalled. “My two songs were ‘Old Time Rock and Roll’ and ‘Cat Scratch Fever’ by Ted Nugent, which by the way, I had no clue and neither did my mom apparently what that song was even about…I think we literally thought it was about somebody’s house cat scratching them and making them sick or something.” 

He admitted he felt like was “in 50 of ‘em” but in reality, the superstar says it was likely around six or seven. Regardless, it was something Shelton decided he no longer wanted to do.  

“I was so embarrassed and humiliated by being in those pageants…I told her, I said, ‘Mom, I don’t want to sing anymore because it’s just embarrassing. And my friends are going to find out.’” 

Appearing at the pageants nearly made Shelton stop performing altogether. In fact, it took a few years for him to get back on stage. 

“But I quit after that because it was just embarrassing. And it wasn’t until I was probably 13, I guess, 12 or 13 that I started wanting to perform again.”

At this point, Shelton finally got the chance to sing the songs he truly loved, and that’s when he realized this was what he wanted to do for the rest of his life.

“My mom found a little Opry-type hometown shows around Ada, Oklahoma. There was a couple of them, and she would go beg ’em to let me be on, and it kind of started again. And that’s when I was finally getting to do back then Kentucky Head Hunters and Travis Tritt and Paul Overstreet and Mark Collie, these artists that I loved,” he shared. “And I was getting to do some country music and by then there was no, in my mind, there was no stopping me. This is what I was going to do.”  

Looking back, those early, sometimes awkward and “embarrassing” performances laid the foundation for Shelton’s future success. And he has his mom to thank for it.