On the 23rd of September, 2024, the 26th season of “The Voice” had premiered. A 15-year-old contestant, Sydney Sterlace received a Blind Audition, and what Gwen Stefani did to win her over caused a stir.
The contestant from Buffalo, New York, amazed the audience and the coaches with Olivia Rodrigo’s “Driver’s Lincense.” While her parents and grandmother supported Sydney from the sideline, the teenager had a blast.
Stefani and Buble turned their chairs immediately, and later Snoop Dogg and Reba McEntire had joined them. Snoop Dogg even gave the teen contestant a standing ovation.
Stefani started to talk about the owner of the song, Olivia Rodrigo, and how she had performed with Rodrigo at Coachella this year.
“It took me a minute to push my button because it was so unbelievably close to her tone. Now finding out that you’re 15 years old… For me, it would be all about getting to know you and how can we make your style of singing even more saturated with Sydney?” Stefani said.
She called herself the “cool mom” of The Voice, and stated that she would grow bigger next to herself.
Then Buble started to talk about how experienced he is, and how he worked with legendary names like Tont Bennett.
“I got to work with my hero, Tony Bennett. I said, ‘Mr. Bennett, I’ve stolen everything from you.’ He said, ‘You know, kid, when you steal from one person, you’re just a thief, but when you steal from everybody, you can call it research.’ And that’s what we do as artists,” Buble said.
Then it was the turn of Snoop Dogg. “You captivated me like I was in church. The way you just held control of the audience. You made me move, you made me get up,” the iconic rapper said.
Then Stefani brought a kitten on the stage, and named her “Sydney,” which Snoop Dogg called the funny action as an “illegal use of an animal.” After that, Sydney chose Stefani as her coach.
Some people were not happy with what Stefani did. A person wrote, “Don’t appreciate the way Gwen manhandled that scared kitten and used it as a tactic to win a contestant.”
“Great voice. Very poor taste of Gwen to wave a small kitten in the air with all the noise on stage. Not surprised she would do that though but being 56 years old, she should know better [sic].” Another fan commented.
“Love this young lady’s voice but the stunt Gwen pulled with the very young terrified kitten was just wrong. Swinging it around like a stuffed toy, anyone that knows animals could tell it was completely terrified. I lost a great deal of respect for Gwen and the organizers of this show that they allowed this.” Was another comment from a fan.
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