Shakira served two very successful stints as a coach on The Voice during Seasons 4 and 6, but now she’s confirming that she has no plans to ever head back to the NBC show for a very important reason.
Amid a whole lot of speculation over the coaches following the Season 12 finale last week and the news that both Gwen Stefani and Alicia Keys would both be leaving, Shakira is confirming that fans more than likely won’t ever see her back in her red revolving chair.
“No, I wouldn’t [go back],” the singer told Entertainment Tonight when asked if she has any plans to return despite there currently being a vacant seat alongside Adam Levine, Blake Shelton and Kelly Clarkson for Season 14 in 2018.
But it sounds like there’s no bad blood behind Shakira’s decision to draw a line under her time on The Voice , as the Colombian star confirmed that her decision not to return was actually influenced by her family life and not any drama on the set.
“It’s so hard to be away from my family,” Shakira, who lives in Spain with her Spanish soccer playing partner Gerard Piqué and their two children, said. “It was a great experience, and of course I miss the guys, they were a lot of fun a lot to talk to, but I wouldn’t go back.”
Understandably, as The Voice shoots in Los Angeles, appearing on the show meant a lot of traveling and time away from her family for the singer, which is one of the biggest reasons Shakira decided not only to take some time away from the NBC show but also from her career.
“I completely revolve around [my kids]. They’re the center of my universe and my biggest priority in life to make sure they feel loved and that they will become good people, great human beings,” Shakira said of why she won’t be heading back to The Voice anytime soon. “That’s my number one goal and then everything else is secondary.”
Shakira, who is mom to sons Milan and Sasha, also revealed that motherhood always comes first to her now and even described music and her career as being her “hobby.”
“I never thought I would say this, music is my hobby,” Shakira said of retuning to the music world with her new album El Dorado . “That’s why I enjoy making this album so much, because now my work is being a mom. I now consider my other work, which is making music, a hobby.”
“Right now, [I’m] back into making music,” she continued of shifting her focus back to her music a little more, three years after she last appeared on The Voice, revealing that she’ll also be heading out on tour soon, which she couldn’t do while on the show. “I miss all that,” admitted the star.
Notably, Shakira’s confession that she won’t be returning to The Voice anytime soon and will instead be focusing on music and motherhood comes shortly after Alicia Keys confirmed that she would also be taking some time away from the show for the same reason.
Keys, who joined the show in 2016, revealed that just like Shakira, she has no plans to return to The Voice anytime soon after it was confirmed that she would not be back for Season 13 in the fall.
“The biggest challenge recently is how to balance all the travel,” Alicia told People when asked about her departure from The Voice before Shakira also confirmed that she would not be returning. “It’s a lot of time away. I want to make sure [my kids] have consistency and are not being dragged from here to there all the time.”
Alicia also revealed that she, too, was working on new music and is “excited” to release it into the world.
“That’s one of the reasons why I won’t be able to come back next season,” Keys told Entertainment Tonight of why she’s waving bye-bye to The Voice for now and won’t be sitting alongside Shakira in a red spinning chair on the show anytime soon. “I’m ready for the next one already, which was kind of the plan the whole time.”
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[Featured Image by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images]