Gwen Stefani has an ace card on “The Voice”: the mom card.
Stephanie went head-to-head with fellow trainer John Legend during the first round of Battles on Tuesday night. During the “Battle” round, each coach pairs up their singers for a series of vocal battles that will determine which members remain on their teams.
Team Niall vocalists Lennon VanderDoes and Tanner Massey performed in a tender rendition of Billy Joel’s ballad “She’s Always a Woman.”
Massey immediately distinguished Stephanie with his magnetic presence on stage. “I’m dead in love with you. You’re just magical,” Stephanie Massey said. “It’s hard not to want to just keep watching you.”
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While coach Niall Horan was captivated by VanderDoes’ “exciting” tone, the Phoenix singer’s duet with Massey sparked a backlash.
“This is one of the battles that I really fought with myself,” Horan said. “And now I regret pairing you up.”
Horan declared Vander Does the winner of the battle, jeopardizing Massey’s position in the competition.
“I’ve always been drawn to really interesting tones,” Horan said of his decision. “There is no one in this competition who has a tone even remotely close to (VanderDoes), and that makes him a very, very dark horse.”
But before Massey could say goodbye, Stefani and Legend pressed the steal button for a chance to recruit the Oklahoma singer to join their teams. “I think America is going to love you, so I feel like we could go pretty far together,” Legend said.
“There’s something about you where you show us what we want more of. What I can do to help you bring it out even more is to hold up a mirror and highlight it,” Stefani told the 19-year-old singer. “And I’m a mother of three boys. I have a son about your age, and he is a singer. I feel like I can just hug you and carry you to victory.”
Stephanie’s maternal instinct paid off. Massey eventually decided to join Gwen’s team.
“I beat John Legend and I can’t believe I have Tanner on my team,” Stephanie said. “It’s so interesting”.
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