‘The Voice’ Season 27 twist stuns coaches — now they think a comeback contestant could take the win
With the grand finale of 'The Voice' so close, coaches are seemingly nervous about who will win the show. Thanks to the recent plot twist, the decision has become even harder. On the May 5 episode, host Carson Daly included an interesting plot twist that no one saw coming: "We've always intended to keep the best artists on this show for the longest amount of time. We're going to allow each of you to bring back one more artist for the Top 8 live shows ... the super-save is on," he told the judges, as reported by Good Housekeeping. On May 12, this major plot twist allowed Adam Levine to save Conor James, Kelsea Bellerini to save Jaelen Johnston, Michael Bublé to save Kaiya Hamilton, and, last but not least, John Legend to save Olivia Kuper Harris, adding them back to the mix for the live shows, making a total of top 12 instead of top 8.
The four comeback contestants battled against the top 8 and had all the judges thinking if they had made a mistake in eliminating them earlier. In an interview with Parade, Legend shared that if any one of the super save artists wins, he won't be surprised. He added, “A lot of times that happens. People that were either stolen or saved go on to do better than the people who were originally picked, so we never know.” While Levine agreed and said, “Not at all. I mean, honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if someone else’s save [won]. It’s one of those wacky things that, at this point, this late in the game, it’s impossible to tell.”
Speaking of Johnston, Bellerini said, “I would not be surprised at all. Then everybody would be like, ‘Kelsea, we told you so.’ And I’d be like, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’m a newbie here." The 'Kelsea Ballerini song' singer also shared why Johnson wasn't her first choice: "It was an in-the-moment decision.“Sometimes there’s an artist that just has such a slam dunk of a performance on that stage that it’s undeniable, even if that’s not what you thought going into it, and then sometimes you really buy into the growth that you’ve seen of the artist and you believe that they can continue to show up well.”
Legend also explained why he brought back Harris. He said, “Honestly, I was agonizing over the fact that I could only pick two, and I was like, ‘Obviously, I have three people that should be going to the Lives,’ and I knew that. It was so painful not picking Olivia because she was amazing, Bryson was amazing, RENZO was amazing, and it was an agonizing decision.” Levine also shared his reason for bringing back James: “Something about Conor, I felt like he had a great performance that night, and he did something different, which I always like to reward."
He added, "It was a fearless choice, and I loved that about it, and so I just wanted to stay with that in that moment,” Levine told the aforementioned outlet. Per People, Bublé also admitted that he was "really struggling" when he watched Hamilton's performance. "I knew it was unfair. I knew that she deserved to be there. She easily could win this competition." However, at the end of the episode, out of the 4 super saves, only Johnston made it to the top 5, as reported by NBC.