Spoiler alert! This story contains spoilers for the final round of The Voice’s Season 24 Knockouts, which aired November 14.
The Voice’s Season 24 playoff teams are set — well, almost, and I’ll get to that later — as Reba McEntire, Gwen Stefani, John Legend and Niall Horan made it through the final night of Knockouts on Tuesday. When I say they made it through, I mean they barely did, because these cuts seemed to be the most painful yet for the mentors. Legend, for one, couldn’t stop crying after one Team Niall contestant’s performance of a Jason Mraz hit, which you can see below.
Lennon VanderDoes took the stage as the final performance of the Knockout round, following two of his teammates from Niall Horan’s team who had just crushed their own covers. Watch what the artist did with “I Won’t Give Up.”
Gwen Stefani was quick to point out that Lennon VanderDoes had caused all of them to tear up, as John Legend proclaimed he was “literally crying.” The EGOT winner continued to wipe tears from his face as Stefani gave her feedback, and then he joked that he was so mad at Niall Horan for pairing these artists together at the end, when no one had any Steals or Saves left, meaning two of the three would be sent home.
John Legend blamed his emotions on being a dad, with his third and fourth children with Chrissy Teigen being born this year. He told the artist:
Ever since I became a dad, I definitely cry a lot more than I used to. So Lennon, I thought of you as, like, the underdog. [Pauses] Excuse me. I just felt you, like, being fully yourself, and it felt so moving to me. I don’t know why I keep crying. I can’t stop! It felt so passionate and so moving, and it really just got me.
Reba McEntire helped John Legend by providing him with a tissue, and subsequent shots showed that the other Voice coaches were also still blotting away tears. McEntire repeated what Mega Mentor Wynonna Judd had told Team Niall member Alexa Wildish during rehearsals about crying being the biggest compliment you can pay an artist, when she said:
Lennon, I hope you realize that that’s the biggest compliment another artist could give you is to sit there and cry, because you touched John to his core.
That he did, and that’s why the aforementioned Alexa Wildish was so surprised when Niall Horan picked her as the winner of the three-way Knockout for her stripped-down version of Cher’s “Believe.” The One Direction alum said Wildish’s performance was the “most mind-blowing moment I’ve ever had on this show,” and she definitely deserved to progress in the competition after doing this:
It’s still a shame that Lennon VanderDoes had to go home, but there could be hope yet. As the credits rolled on the episode, Carson Daly announced a twist on the season, with each coach being allowed to bring back one eliminated artist from any team to compete in the Playoffs. Will John Legend use the opportunity to save the man who brought him to tears?
With so many Four-Chair Turns on Team Legend, it’s hard to believe he’d look to save someone outside of his own group, but I guess we’ll have to wait and see. New episodes of The Voice air at 8 p.m. ET Mondays and 9 p.m. ET Tuesdays on NBC and are available to stream the next day with a Peacock subscription.
