Cee Lo Green has made a huge announcement regarding his future on The Voice. Appearing on The Ellen DeGeneres Show on Wednesday, the “Forget You” singer revealed he is leaving the hit NBC singing competition show.
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The singer was a guest on Ellen with Lionel Ritchie to discuss touring together when the big bombshell was dropped, taking even the talk show host herself by surprise (she thought he was only taking a break, as we all assumed).
“I’m going to continue my relationship with NBC,” Cee Lo said. “I have a television show development deal with them as well, and hopefully some other talk show opportunities for later in the year. But I’m going to miss The Voice too.”
Then he made sure everyone understood the news he was making: “I’m not coming back, guys.” The audience seemed disappointed, and Ellen was taken aback, saying, “You’re not coming back at all? I did not know that.”
“I don’t want to wear out my welcome there, you know what I’m saying?” he continued. “I have so many other things that I want to do. I haven’t released an album in four years. I’m almost done with an album.” It’s unclear if Cee Lo came into the interview with the intention of making this announcement today because he finished by saying, “I didn’t mean to drop the bomb today.”
You can watch the entire interview below:
Cee Lo Green is one of the original coaches on The Voice, having started the show with Adam Levine, Christina Aguilera, Blake Shelton and host Carson Daly. Both Cee Lo and Christina took a break during season 4, where they were replaced by Usher and Shakira (who are returning for this spring’s edition).
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Cee Lo was known on the show for his outrageous outfits and his “sidekick” animals like Purrfect the cat and Lady Bird. But he tended to be the weakest coach on The Voice, giving rambling comments that didn’t always make sense. Plus, he had yet to see one of his own contestants win, and pretty much gave up trying in season 5 (which was especially noticeable when Christina went all out to try and win).
Everyone probably assumed the originals would reunite again in the fall, but that won’t be happening now. It’s unclear at this point who will be sitting in the big red chairs come September. Adam and Blake have been staples since the beginning — will they want to finally take a break themselves or continue on? And now that Cee Lo’s gone, will Christina bow out as well? With the popularity of Usher, it’s likely NBC will try and sign him up for season 7 now that there’s at least one opening. Who knows, maybe the network will end up taking the show back to airing just once a year instead of two, but that seems unlikely.
The Voice season 6 premieres Monday, February 24 at 8pm on NBC.
(Image courtesy of NBC)
Staff Writer, BuddyTV
Jeff Dodge, a graduate of Western Washington University, has been a TV news editor for many years and has had the chance to interview multiple reality show stars, including Randy Jackson, Nick Cannon, Heidi Klum, Mel B and John Cena.
