The top 20 contestants gave it their all on Monday night’s episode of The Voice — and one coach in particular was especially grateful they did.
As the first live show of the season, contestants weren’t the only ones who were hyped up for their performances — coaches Blake Shelton, John Legend, Ariana Grande and Kelly Clarkson were just as excited. In fact, Kelly was so pumped at one point that she even took off a part of her outfit — her shoes, to be exact.
Following Paris Winningham’s stunning rendition of The Temptations' "I Wish It Would Rain," Kelly took off her heels and threw them at him on stage.
Although some viewers might have taken this as a symbol of booing someone off the stage, Kelly actually did it for the opposite reason — to her, it’s a really good thing. To make that clear, host Carson Daly took time to explain, “We learned from our friend Jennifer Hudson when she was a coach on The Voice, this is the ultimate sign of respect."
Of course, fans watching Kelly at home loved to see it. "Not Kelly throwing her shoes 😂😂," one fan tweeted, while another fan wrote, " lmao."
As respectful as it’s intended to be, it can still be pretty surprising. To make light of it, Kelly and Jennifer have had shoe-throwing inside jokes and encounters over the years.
Back in 2019, when comedian Joel Kim Booster was a guest on The Kelly Clarkson Show, he threw a pair of classic checkered Vans at both Kelly and Jennifer, who was also a guest. Rather than getting upset, the way that some people might when being pelted with shoes, they smiled and clapped in approval.
So, the next time you see someone throw a shoe, maybe think twice before assuming their intentions. You never know!
Rebecca Norris is a full-time freelance writer living in the Washington, D.C. metro area. Over the past 10+ years, she’s heavily covered a range of lifestyle topics, including travel, home, beauty, style, wellness, and celebrity news. She is a graduate of George Mason University, where she earned a B.A. in Media: Production, Consumption, and Critique, along with a minor in Electronic Journalism. When she's not writing, she can be found strolling with her Jack-Chi, Cash, sipping iced matcha lattes, indulging in delicious cuisine, perusing farmer’s markets and antique sales, collecting colored glass, getting lost within the pages of a book, and exploring new bucket-list cities.
