Reba McEntire is loving her inaugural season as a coach on The Voice. The 68-year-old enjoys not only meeting the aspiring singers, but also the chance to spend time with Gwen Stefani, John Legend and Niall Horan, who join her in the red swivel chairs week after week.
“We’re having a blast,” McEntire boasts to Extra. “It is competition. It’s fun rivalry, but we have the best time on that show. And what blows me away is the amount of talent that keeps coming on. We’re in Season 24, and the talent is unbelievable.”
McEntire admits she was unsure, at first, how she and Stefani would do during the show, but quickly found they had a lot in common.
“Niall sits to my right, so we’re always kind of sparring. Gwen and I have such a great time,” McEntire says. “At first, she’s so intimidating, and I thought she was being mean to me. And then she said, ‘I just want you to like me.’ And I said, ‘Well that’s all you had to say,’ and we’re best friends.”
Photo Credit: Courtesy of NBC / Tyler Golden
“John Legend is such a legend, and he’s smart,” she continues. “Then we find out he’s an English major. That’s why he talks so much, because he’s got all the words already up there. I’m just having a blast. The producers, everybody on the team, crew — I just love them all.”
The Oklahoma nativeis enjoying her time on The Voice, even if it’s a lot more challenging than she anticipated.
‘The Blind Auditions are so much harder than I thought they were gonna be,” McEntire previously admitted. “They block you, and it’s just so devious, but a lot of fun too. Everybody’s just as sweet as kind off-stage as they can be. When they come on the stage though, they kind of change their personality.
“They’re real mean. Especially Gwen,” she joked.
McEntire just released “Seven Minutes in Heaven,” the only new song on her Not That Fancy acoustic album, out now. The song and video are both a tribute to her late mother, Jacqueline, who passed away in 2020.
“The music video for ‘Seven Minutes In Heaven’ is just really sweet and simple,” McEntire says (via CMT). “We tried to imagine what it might be like to go to heaven and sit down with someone you’ve lost. The heartbreaker is that you only get to spend seven minutes with them. For me, that person is my Mama. I hope that the fans can imagine who that person is for them and find some comfort in knowing that someday, they’ll get to spend forever with that person they love.”
All of McEntire’s music and upcoming shows can be found at Reba.com.
The Voice airs on Monday and Tuesday nights at 8:00 PM ET on NBC.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of NBC / Trae Patton