If you were thinking that Christina Aguilera would be returning to The Voice coaches panel this fall to help promote her upcoming album, Liberation, think again!
In a new interview with Billboard magazine the singer chatted about her R&B and Hip Hop influenced set featuring Ty Dolla $ign and 2 Chainz, and Kanye West production on two tracks. Calling the NBC singing competition, a “churning hamster wheel,” Christina is happy to be finished with that chapter of her life.
When I ask Aguilera if she’d ever return to The Voice, she scrunches up her porcelain face and says she would prefer to discuss “positive things.” Still, she can’t help but delve into what was wrong with the show, which was a lot. “It became something that I didn’t feel was what I had signed up for in season one,” she says. “You realize it’s not about music. It’s about making good TV moments and massaging a story.
“I didn’t get into this business to be a television show host and to be given all these [rules],” she continues. “Especially as a female: You can’t wear this, can’t say that. I would find myself on that show desperately trying to express myself through clothing or makeup or hair. It was my only kind of outlet.”
After five years devoted to the “energy sucker” that was The Voice, she says, “I was longing for freedom.” Coming home from the set, she remembers, “I would just take everything off — the makeup, all of it — and would blast hip-hop, or Nirvana, ‘Creep,’ Slayer. Anything like that to get me out of that zone, that TV mode.”
That Christina believed The Voice, and it’s spinning chairs and fake boxing ring, would be all about the music is absolutely adorable! I have to admit though, I did appreciate the way she spoke her mind. Christina wasn’t above throwing a little shade here and there amid the cliches and platitudes coming from the rest of the coaches panel. Having said that, her grudge against Team Adam Levine and fellow Mickey Mouse club member, Tony Lucca, back in season 2 was a little bizarre.
Christina sat on the panel during Seasons 1, 2, 3, 5, 8 and 10. She won her final season, in 2016, with former child star Alisan Porter. Ms Xtina has nothing left to prove.
ETA: An additional thought–Christina may be a little bitter that The Voice didn’t super-charge her career as it has for veteran coaches Blake Shelton and Adam Levine.
