Kelsea Ballerini had the cutest reason to add a singer to Team Kelsea on The Voice (and to decide to change her name).
Robert Hunter covered Cody Johnson’s hit anthem, ’Til You Can’t,” during his blind audition for the hit competition show. First-time coach Ballerini emphatically turned her chair within seconds of the performance, declaring to her fellow coaches (Adam Levine, John Legend and Michael Bublé), “out of my way! Out of my way.” Still, by the end of the song, Bublé opted to battle with Ballerini to recruit the country singer on his team.
“I am looking for storytellers, writers, artists, and the way that you told the story is what really interests me,” Ballerini told Hunter, a 33-year-old sheriff's deputy from Garner, North Carolina. “I’m new here, but I’m also now. And I’m also now in country. I would really love to work with you.”
Bublé made his pitch to sway Hunter to Team Michael, but Hunter’s young daughter had other plans.
Hunter invited his wife and daughter to join him on stage. He asked his daughter, “who’s your favorite singer?”
“Kelsea Ballerini,” the 3-year-old girl softly replied (though it sounded like “Kelsea Ballerina”).
“What’s your favorite song, baby?” Hunter asked his daughter.
“If You Go Down (I’m Goin’ Down Too),” she began to sing. Ballerini excitedly finished the song title as she hurried on stage to join Hunter and his family. Ballerini held Hunter’s daughter and said, “your dad just did really cool things!”
“I mean, can we talk about what happened? Robert’s daughter made the best choice,” Ballerini said in a clip from The Voice, shared by a fan account for the Patterns artist. “I think she said ‘Kelsea Ballerina,’ so I’m now officially changing my name. She could’ve said ‘broccoli,’ and I would’ve gone by ‘broccoli.’ I can’t wait to work with all of them. …The country format, it is about singing your truth, and so, I related to that and I loved that. Michael (Bublé), I know that you love country music. But you can’t touch this.”
Watch Hunter’s blind audition (and his daughter’s adorable decision) here: