It’s official!
After reports circulated yesterday that both Cee Lo Green and Christina Aguilera would be leaving The Voice after this season wraps, and would be replaced by Usher and Shakira, NBC has officially confirmed the casting news to be true!
However, don’t get stressed! It’s just a break from the back-to-back production schedule so the pair can work on other projects!
And we don’t blame them!
Xtina has her Lotus to promote, and Cee Lo is working on another TV show!
NBC chairman Robert Greenblatt says in a statement:
“We are thrilled to welcome Usher and Shakira to The Voice. Doing two back-to-back cycles of this show requires a tremendous amount of time and we are happy to accommodate the commitments made by Christina and Cee Lo.”
While Christina furthers:
“By pursuing my first passion of music during the break, I am also able to come back and offer even more to my team on The Voice in the future.”
And Cee Lo agrees:
“I will return for season five and will be watching season four.”
All right! This is actually a pretty genius move on production’s part!
Given the increasing star power of judges on competitions like this and the intense and time-consuming production schedule, it makes perfect sense to have a rotating panel ready to go when situations like this arise!
Not to mention that it would probably make musicians who wouldn’t necessarily want to commit to long-term contracts more prone to sign on!
In fact, we wouldn’t be too surprised if American Idol and X Factor followed suit with this module!
Either way, we can’t WAIT to see how Shakira and Usher do in these roles!
We hope they’re ready! They have some big shoes to fill!
What do U think?? Are U excited for The Voice casting shake-up??
[Images via WENN.]