Blake Shelton has a whole lot of experience when it comes to coaching The Voice , but it looks like he may need to watch his back when Kelly Clarkson joins the coaching panel next year.
Though there’s still a few months to go before The Voice fans will see Clarkson sitting in her red spinning chair for Season 14, the former American Idol winner already has the trash talk going with the country star after teasing that she’s ready to “annihilate” him when she joins the popular NBC show in 2018.
Ahead of the two teaming up to perform at the Department of Defense Warrior Games in Chicago on July 1, Kelly revealed her true feelings about Blake to the Chicago Tribune and admitted that she has no plans to go easy on Gwen Stefani’s man when they go head to head as coaches on the show just because they’re friends.
“I guess it will be a precursor for The Voice ,” Clarkson teased of getting together with Shelton for the Chicago event this weekend, joking that performing together will be “a precursor to when I annihilate him.”
But it sounds like Kelly’s plans to take Blake down are all in good fun, as she revealed that the twosome have actually been friendly for about 10 years now.
“I’m a big fan of [Blake’s]. Always have been for, I don’t know, for like a decade now we’ve been friends,” Clarkson said of her long friendship with the country star. “So yeah, it should be fun.”
Kelly and Blake previously admitted that their friendship will more than likely turn into a bitter rivalry when the “Heartbeat Song” singer joins The Voice next year after Shelton confirmed that his long time friend would be joining the show earlier this year.
Confirming that Clarkson had already been locked down as a coach for Season 14 just one day after NBC announced that his girlfriend Gwen and Alicia Keys would both be leaving the show to make room for Miley Cyrus and Jennifer Hudson on Season 13, the two joked about their rivalry in a video posted to Shelton’s Facebook page.
Blake referred to Kelly as being “a very near and dear friend” in the video and even gushed that Kelly “is somebody that I consider to be family” while also describing her as being “extremely talented.”
He then suggested that he may have had something to do with the decision to bring the mom of two on-board for Season 14 of the singing show by adding that “we have felt as a family at The Voice that this person would fit in perfectly.”
But while Shelton was gushing over the singer in the clip, the two’s rivalry then began to rear its head as Kelly joked that Stefani’s boyfriend needs to “watch out” when she takes her seat alongside him and fellow mainstay coach Adam Levine in spring 2018.
As of right now, Clarkson, Shelton and Levine are the only confirmed coaches for Season 14 though NBC are expected to announce the fourth coach later this year.
What do you think of Kelly Clarkson joking that she’s ready to “annihilate” Blake Shelton when she joins The Voice as a coach next year?
[Featured Image by Jason Kempin/Getty Images and Cindy Ord/Getty Images for SiriusXM]