Usher may have been the breakout judge of the fourth season of “The Voice,” with his unconventional coaching techniques involving push-ups and ballroom dancing, but so far, Shakira is the star of the season six premiere.
With witty zingers (“Adam’s too busy thinking about his wedding, all he thinks about is flower arrangements!” she said of Adam Levine), a sharp focus (she said she “might have been hormonal and sleepless” in season four, after having a baby) and an outrageous social media following (over 24 million Twitter followers and 83 million Facebook fans), the musician has returned to “The Voice” with her fair share of sass.
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But don’t count Usher out. At the time that the blind auditions were filmed, he was preparing to play Sugar Ray Leonard in Hands of Stone (the film is now in post-production), so he spent the seconds between performances working out. “I can win these four chair turns all day,” he tells the camera while doing sit-ups, which came in handy when he showed his abs to a contestant.
After kicking off the episode with a genre-swapping performance of each other’s hits (watch it below), the four coaches settled into their spinning chairs for the first night of the blind auditions. Meet the first recruited singers of season six (and the ones who nearly made a team) over at THR.com.