Blake Shelton Shares Secrets From ‘The Voice’

Country superstar Blake Shelton recently brought NBC’s The Voice to Ole Red Nashville where he held a press conference to talk about the hit show. With members of Team Blake watching from the back of the crowd of media, the “Hell Right” singer spilled a few details about the show.

Here are five things we learned from Blake Shelton’s The Voice press conference in Nashville.

1. Reba was the show’s original choice for a country coach.

“I’ve heard different versions of this, and now that the show’s a hit, several people have claimed credit for it, but if I’m not mistaken, they wanted Reba to be a coach on The Voice first,” Shelton explained. “They knew they wanted a country artist to be a coach on The Voice to fill that lane, so they called Starstruck and Reba at the time, for whatever reason I can’t remember, she may have had her Malibu Country show going at the time, for whatever reason, she couldn’t do it or they just decided it wasn’t the thing for her at the time.”

That’s when Shelton’s manager, and McEntire’s then-husband, Narvel Blackstock, stepped in.

“I got this other guy that I manage that he’s got all the time in the world,” Shelton jokingly said.

2. Blake truly admires Taylor Swift.

Superstar Taylor Swift returned to the show as a “Mega Mentor” this season and Shelton was thrilled.

“Taylor is a different level of knowledge and she’s just so smart,” he shared. “That’s the thing, we all know how talented Taylor is, but I think 50-percent of her success is also combining her talent with just literally how smart she is. When I’m around her, I just love soaking it in and listening to her talk and how she always has something to say or a way of looking at something that I never have… so people are always blown away when she comes on the show is from that side of it you know because once you get past ‘ahh it’s Taylor Swift’ then you’re even more impressed once you just can get that out of the way and then just kind of soak in who she is.”

3. He really dislikes sending contestants home.

“I like these live shows a lot better and for one very selfish reason: that I don’t like to be the one who’s eliminating people from the show,” he confessed. “I’ve said it from the beginning, I hate that part of my job. I literally despise it. I don’t want it to be in my hands. When we get to lives it still hurts as bad to see somebody go home but you know, but at least you don’t feel as directly responsible for it.”

4. Morgan Wallen is one contestant he thinks the show missed the mark on.

“I think one I look back on now and go ‘what the hell?’ is Morgan Wallen,” Shelton admitted. “He was on the show, he wasn’t even on my team, he was on Adam’s team. The whole thing just seemed screwed up. He was on the show, but he was on Adam’s team and he didn’t even get through the battles and now here he is having these gigantic, huge number one hits in country music and I can’t take any of the credit it pisses me off.”

5. Blake has a clear message for new coach Nick Jonas: “He can kiss my ass.”

“We’ve auditioned the next season’s blind auditions already so I’ve competed with him now, so he’s a tough guy to go against. When there’s a young person on stage and it’s between me and Nick Jonas… Well yeah, I’m screwed every time. He can kiss my ass.”

For more with Blake Shelton, watch the clip above.

Fans can tune in to The Voice on Mondays at 8/7 c and Tuesdays at 9/8 c on NBC.