Kelly Clarkson: “Males Never Pick Me” on ‘The Voice’…Let’s Investigate!
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This week on The Voice, coach (and defending champion) Kelly Clarkson made a bold claim. Now in her third season, she argued that males never pick her as a coach!
But is there any truth to this? We’re going to investigate!
Here’s a season-by-season breakdown of Kelly’s struggles to get males on her team:
Season 14
# of Times Kelly Turned for Males: 10
# of Times Males Picked Kelly: 2
# of Times Males Defaulted to Kelly’s Team (only chair turned): 2# of Males in Her First 12: 4
Kelly’s first season started this trend. While she turned for 10 males, only 4 of them ended up on her team. So more than half of the males she turned for chose someone else, when given the option. Then again, she also turned for 17 females and only ended up with 8 of them. Maybe Kelly just went too crazy with her button on Season 14. The ending numbers are actually pretty proportionate to what she turned for. And she did end up getting Kaleb Lee on her team in the Battles, taking him all the way to the Semifinals.
Season 15
# of Times Kelly Turned for Males: 10
# of Times Males Picked Kelly: 4
# of Times Males Defaulted to Kelly’s Team (only chair turned): 0
# of Males in Her First 12: 4
Returning from her big win, Kelly was determined to get another country artist this season. And she did hook both a country female artist in Chevel Shepherd and male artist in Mikele Buck. But after turning for 10 male artists for a second season in a row, again only 4 ended up on her team. This time around, she turned for 13 females and 8 of those chose her. Much better numbers on that end! Here we can see the struggle with male artists starting. It’s still not to a crazy point, but you get the idea. Her top 4 (including Lynnea Moorer from The Comeback Stage) was made up of all females in Season 15.
Season 16 (So Far)
# of Times Kelly Turned for Males: 7
# of Times Males Picked Kelly: 1
# of Times Males Defaulted to Kelly’s Team (only chair turned): 0
# of Males in Her First 12: 1
To be fair, Season 16 has been rough for Kelly getting males on her team so far. Now we start to see what Kelly was talking about even more. Of the six artists she has, only one is male. But it’s a very promising contestant in Jej Vinson! After turning for 7 males total though, only getting one from that is disappointing.
So why don’t more men pick Kelly as their coach? Well, this trend of men tending to pick the male coaches is nothing new. And the same goes for women picking female coaches! JHud also had all women in her Top 3 last season, while Blake had all men. In Season 13, Miley had three women as her last contestants standing. Same for Shakira in Season 6. In fact, the ONLY coach who has EVER had a Top 3 comprised entirely of the opposite gender was Adam in Season 4, when his last three artists were Amber Carrington, Judith Hill, and Sarah Simmons. So I think this tendency goes beyond just Kelly here.
She is smart to point it out though! Kelly is honestly a great coach, regardless of the gender of her contestants. She has proved this by bringing her team onto her tour and genuinely investing in them. Fingers crossed she can get more males on her team in the second half of this season’s Blind Auditions! We’re rooting for you, Kelly!