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What Happened To The Voice Winner Jermaine Paul?
Jermaine Paul, coached to victory by Blake Shelton in 2012, still performs to this day.
Blake Shelton’s first win as a coach of The Voice came more than a decade ago when R&B singer Jermaine Paul was crowned the champion of Season 2 in 2012. Although he’s never released his own album, Paul still sings before audiences across the world today.
Paul came into The Voice with experience and even award nominations, providing vocals for big names like Alicia Keys — who later became a Coach on Seasons 11, 12, and 14 —on her Grammy-nominated song “Diary” from the 2003 album The Diary of Alicia Keys. In 2006, he was co-nominated for a Grammy with Keys for the song “If This World Were Mine.” He also sang backup for Mary J. Blige before competing on the show.
But after his Blind Audition of Avril Lavigne’s “Complicated,” he seemed like an unlikely candidate to win it all, with only two coaches turning their chairs for him — Cee Lo Green and Blake Shelton.
RELATED: Why Is Blake Shelton Leaving The Voice After Season 23?
But, where there's a will there's a way, with Paul and Shelton working together to the end. Paul described himself as developing a “bromance” with his mentor during The Voice.
“He’s a good guy, he’s a man’s man, he’s a what-you-see-is-what-you-get type of guy, and that’s the kind of guy I try to be,” Paul told MTV of Shelton. “That was ultimately one of the main reasons I chose him as my coach. I just felt his sincerity, the realness. He jokes around a lot, you know? When he walks in the room, he definitely has a way of lighting up the air.”
As part of winning the show, he scored a record deal with Universal, and shared that Keys was among the first to congratulate him.
“She called me onstage,” Paul told US Weekly. “She was screaming at the top of her lungs. She made me feel like a million bucks.”
Paul also got a lot of love from his coach after his big win, as he described Shelton as “happy as Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and Ronald McDonald in one!”
“[Blake] reminds me a lot of myself, believe it or not,” Paul told US Weekly. “The fact that he kept me around, that’s all I really asked of him to do. He said ‘the rest is up to you’ and I feel like I’ve done my job for him. He’s definitely done his job for me.”
Paul’s cover of R. Kelly’s “I Believe I Can Fly,” which he also performed on the show, reached Number 32 on the Billboard Digital Sound Chart, according to The List. Paul and Shelton later recorded a song together called “Soul Man,” which peaked at Number 56.
About six months after winning The Voice, he released a third single called “I Believe In This Life.” Paul was scheduled to drop his debut album, Make Love Save The World, in 2015, but the album was never released, according to The List.
Paul has remained mostly quiet since becoming the Season 2 winner, with his latest music on Spotify and YouTube being the 2019 single “Water,” and before that, “Working Sista” in 2015.
He describes himself as currently the CEO of CJAS Music on his LinkedIn profile.
He still sings for audiences, sharing a picture of himself on his Instagram May 8 with the New Haven Choral in Yale University’s Woosley Hall. He also posted a picture of himself in January singing with his guitar at the Hamden Education Foundation’s “The Voice of Hamden” show in Connecticut. He also toured with the Summertime Choir in Italy in December 2022.
Catch up with more artists from The Voice by streaming episodes right now on Peacock.
