The battle pairings on Season 21’s The Voice are coming to an end, which means emotions are running high as coaches continue to whittle down their teams from 11 to 10.
On Tuesday night (Oct. 19), Blake Shelton, Kelly Clarkson, John Legend and Ariana Grande listened on as the final Battle Round performers took to the stage to sing their hearts out in hopes to advance to the show’s Knockout stage of the competition.
Shelton, who has won the most seasons so far, pitted ukulele player Kaitlyn Velez against Make-a-Wish singer Berritt Haynes. With Shelton being the show’s resident country coach, it seemed likely that he would choose a country song for the battle round, but he went a different route. He had Velez and Haynes trade vocals on Coldplay’s “Yellow.”
Onstage, Haynes, 19, strummed his acoustic guitar while showing off his smooth vocals on the beginning lyrics of the tune. Velez, meanwhile, snuck in her lines, earning a resounding “I like it” from coach Clarkson. The Voice didn’t air Haynes’ and Velez’s entire performance, but viewers did find out who Shelton hand-picked to win the battle.
“Berritt, I was just captivated by you,” Clarkson said of the performance before telling the other coaches that “his tone was cool.”
Shelton, forced to select only one of the two singers to move forward in the competition, then chose Haynes as the battle winner, explaining that he felt the singer “stepped up to the plate.”
The Voice airs Monday and Tuesday nights on NBC.
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