‘The Voice’ Reveals Top 5 Stacked With Three Blake Shelton Contestants in Judge’s Final Run
It was a very good night for Team Blake on The Voice on Tuesday night (Dec. 6). Country star Blake Shelton — who holds the record for the most wins (8) over the show’s 22 seasons — seems poised to usher one of his charges into the winner’s circle again during next week’s finale after three of his team members moved on.
Twitter couldn’t help but notice that the three white country singers from Shelton’s team — Bryce Leatherwood, Brayden Lape and bodie — were joined by another white performer, Team Camila Cabello’s Morgan Myles in the top four. The only non-white singer to make the cut in the top 5 was powerhouse vocalist Omar Jose Cardona, who was saved after landing in the bottom four, which “stunned” his coach John Legend; for the third time in her six seasons on the show, Gwen Stefani will not have a singer in the finals.
Cardona had to compete against Kim Cruse, Justin Aaron and Parijita Bastola for a spot in next week’s championship round, punching his ticket with a strong take on Lady Gaga’s “You and I.” The results had some on Twitter crying foul. “So the voice is really getting blatantly racist,” read one comment on Twitter, where a number of users complained about the poor representation from Legend’s team, which featured a number highly praised vocalists.
“I’m 100% disappointed!! #johnLegend has 3 of the best singer there & this is result,” said another. “If you wanna see how blatantly racist america is just watch #thevoice,” wrote one disgruntled viewer, with a similar sentiments coming in tweets that read, “America is clearly delusional, confused and oh, can’t forget racist” and “All the blacks and browns up for elimination when they are the best ones there? America is never beating the racism allegations. #TheVoice.”
A spokesperson for The Voice had not returned a request for comment at press time.
Yahoo! Entertainment‘s Lyndsey Parker wrote that “the optics were not good as Parijita, Kim, Justin, and Omar stood onstage learning the results, especially considering all the sheer talent among these four.”
Gil Kaufman
Billboard
