'The Voice' Season 12: Is Blake Shelton & Gwen Stefani's Romance Cute or Distracting? [VIDEO]
The first week of The Voice season 12 focused on Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani frequently, dividing some of the show's fans.
Stefani made her triumphant return to The Voice coaching panel this week, joining regulars Adam Levine and Shelton and newer coach Alicia Keys. The first three episodes that aired this week featured Blind Auditions where coaches turn their chairs and hope prospective contestants will pick them, but it also focused on some interpersonal coach relationships.
In addition to the typical Levine-Shelton playful bickering, Shelton and Stefani's romance was brought up multiple times through all three episodes. Stefani even sat on Shelton's lap at one point as a contestant picked him to be their coach, to which Shelton asked his girlfriend, "Am I in trouble?" Stefani replied, "I pick Blake, too!"
At another point Stefani told a country-singing contestant that picking her as a coach would give the contestant two for the price of one. Levine joked that he felt like "the third wheel," and thought the two coaches flirting so much was a "weird" experience.
Shelton and Stefani coached during season 9 of The Voice just as they were starting to date, but their romance wasn't highlighted as much. Their budding romance continued with a romantic duet of "Go Ahead and Break My Heart" on The Voice stage during season 10. It's been over a year since Shelton and Stefani started dating, and it's clear from what viewers have seen so far that they are pretty madly in love.
Either way, things are bound to get competitive soon. As the competitive inevitably dwindles down to the Top 12, all four coaches will be battling it out to save their contestants, so we'll see how much innocent flirting there is left between Stefani and Shelton by the end of the season.
The Voice season 12 airs Mondays and Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on NBC.
