How Blake Shelton Got His Start as a Singer ... on the Pageant Circuit
As a kid, the future country superstar had to go to great lengths to find an audience.
As musical origin stories go, Blake Shelton has a beauty.
The country music legend and former The Voice Coach took his first step towards stardom as a young boy on a pageant runway of all places.
Shelton’s mother had been taking his older sister, Endy, to participate in beauty pageants in and around their hometown of Ada, Oklahoma, when she got the idea of including her son in the competition circuit.
How Did Blake Shelton Launch His Performing Career?
“My mom would enter me in pageants, like literally pageants, so I could sing on the talent portion,” Blake recalled on The Kelly Clarkson Show in October 2020. “But then you’d also have to do the evening wear (competition).”
There weren’t always high notes.
Among the songs he’d croon was the lewd Ted Nugent rocker, "Cat Scratch Fever," “which didn’t go over well with the soccer moms in the audience,” he said.
Soccer moms, and just about everyone else, have since come around: Shelton, now 48, has notched 29 number-one singles, sold 13 million albums and filled his mantle-place with six ACMs, three AMAs, 10 CMAs and seven People’s Choice Awards. Not to mention a popular 23-season run on The Voice.
But back then, he struggled with doubts even as he was making a good first impression.
“It was very humiliating for me,” Shelton told NBC’s Access Hollywood way back in 2001 of his pageant days. “Because it was like me, I was a 7-year-old boy, with 30 or 40 little girls. I did okay in the talent portion of the pageant, but I told mom, if that’s what I have to do to sing, I don’t want to sing anymore. My beauty pageant days were short-lived.”
What's Blake Shelton Been Doing Since Leaving The Voice?
Shelton left The Voice in May 2023 after 23 seasons to spend more time on his Oklahoma farm with his wife, Gwen Stefani, and her three sons from her first marriage.
The two met as coaches on The Voice and married in 2021, and even tapped the show’s host, Carson Daly, to officiate the ceremony.
But in some ways, Shelton never really left the series.
When his longtime bestie/frenemy, Adam Levine, returned to The Voice after 11 seasons away, Shelton lent his pipes to Coach Kelsea Ballerini.
During the Season 27 premiere of The Voice, Ballerini showed off a button on her red chair that she can press to play insults that were pre-recorded by Shelton to be aimed at Levine.
The recordings include: "Adam’s a big baby," "Adam … won’t shut up," "Adam, you say a lot of stupid stuff," and "Adam’s a crappy Coach."
Levine got some good-natured revenge by texting Shelton 11 times with his own putdowns during the following week’s show.
Blake Shelton hosting Grand Ole Opry special
Shelton will also be back in front of the cameras on NBC on Wednesday, March 19, to host the network special, Opry 100: A Live Celebration, celebrating the centennial anniversary of the Nashville country music institution.
“Becoming a member of the Opry is a highlight of my life and career, and 15 years later I still get that same feeling of reverence and excitement every time I walk out on that stage,” Shelton said in a statement. “The Grand Ole Opry has been connecting the country music family for 100 years, and I’m so proud to be part of this historic celebration.”
Shelton sure has come a long way since his beauty pageant days in Ada.
