‘The Voice’ hit with rigging accusations as surprise twist sends top contenders home before finale
'The Voice' season 27 premiered on February 3 with judges Adam Levine, John Legend, Michael Bublé, and Kelsea Ballerini. The chair-turning show is finally set to come to a close with the season finale airing as a two-night event on May 19. The show's top five contestants will compete to take home this year's iconic 'Voice' trophy, the golden microphone. That said, this season, a 'surprise twist' was brought to the show that changed things quite a bit for the contestants. By the end of the episode, seven 'The Voice' hopefuls were sent home, and the show got the top 5 contestants of the season.
In the episode, it was revealed that each coach will get one 'surprise twist,' which is a 'super save' card that can bring one eliminated contestant back. The way the results worked was as follows: The four artists with the highest number of votes were automatically put through, and then the middle four had to sing in the Instant Save for America’s second vote for the one remaining spot. The bottom four vote-getters were automatically eliminated. By the end of the episode, Alanna Lynise, Bryson Battle, Conor James, Iris Herrera, Kaiya Hamilton, Kolby Cordell, and Olivia Kuper Harris got eliminated from the show. After the mass elimination, five singers who made their spot in the Top 5 were Adam David (Team Bublé), Jadyn Cree (Team Bublé), Renzo (Team Legend), Jaelen Johnston (Team Kelsea), and Lucia Flores-Wiseman (Team Adam).
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That said, fans didn't take kindly to seven contestants being eliminated from the show as they took to social media to express their views. On Reddit, one person posted a thread titled, "Why is it that every season I feel is rigged? How, HOW?" Did Jadyn and Adam advance to the finals over Connor , Iris, Alayna, and Olivia?! I swear to God this is rigged. The only people that advanced that deserved it were Jalen and Lucia; the others did great, sure, I just didn't expect them to advance." To which, one person replied, "Adam deserved it. I was surprised about Iris, Conor, and especially Bryson, though. Jadyn is really the only one I wouldn't put in the lives myself out of the top 12. This was a really talented season overall. Maybe votes got split."
Angry with the elimination, one X user said, "I AM OUTRAGED BY THE RESULTS OF NBC'S THE VOICE TONIGHT. I AM SICK AND TIRED OF AMERICA VOTING. THE SHOW IS CALLED THE VOICE. THE VOICE! BRYSON HAS “THE VOICE.” NO ONE IS ON HIS LEVEL. THIS IS NOT RIGHT. I AM BEYOND ANGRY! SHAME ON YOU, AMERICA." On a similar note, another web sleuth wrote, "If you haven't watched the results of the Voice semifinals, you should probably stop reading this bc it WILL have spoilers... Why the F*** is Bryson Battle NOT IN THE FINALE???? WHAT IS WRONG WITH LITERALLY ALL OF THE PEOPLE WHO VOTED? THIS IS NOT EVEN REMOTELY CORRECT #TheVoice."