The Voice: Camila Cabello Shocks Contestants Singing Shawn Mendes Collab

Camila Cabello gave two contestants on The Voice a big shock. It was recently announced that Camila would be John Legend’s advisor for the Battles this season. Jason Aldean, Kristin Chenoweth and Dierks Bentley are the advisors for coaches Kelly Clarkson, Ariana Grande and Blake Shelton, respectively. The Voice season 21 also sees the return of Teams of 12, a decision likely made because The Voice is only airing one cycle starting this season.

As The Voice fans know, the Battles see each coach pair their team members up for a duet performance, which the coaches and their advisors will coach the artists through. The coaches can only pick one winner for each Battle, but twists allow for some lucky artists who lose their Battles to make a comeback. Since season 3, the Steal has been a game-changing twist that allows the other three coaches to bring a losing artist to their team. Since season 17, the Save allows the coach who eliminated an artist to bring them back. Each Voice coach has one steal and one save. That means that this season, eight artists who lose their Battle will still advance to the Knockouts.

The Voice season 21 Battles kicked off recently, and Camila gave one Battle pairing the ultimate shock, as reported by Yahoo. Before introducing artists KJ Jennings and Samuel Harness to their advisor, coach John told the pair that they would be singing “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” the popular duet performed by Shawn Mendes and Camila herself. Backstage footage showed Camila getting ready to surprise KJ and Samuel, as John introduced her. When Camila walked in, both artists were shocked. John reminded KJ and Samuel of Shawn and Camila’s relationship, and the fact that this was the first song that they wrote together. The Voice coach then joked about KJ and Samuel following in their footsteps. “The way you all connected…the chemistry was great…That’s all I want to say–no pressure!“ Camila elaborated on her collaboration with Shawn by saying, “Yeah, I walked away with more than a song, if you know what I mean.” While the song is a duet, only one artist would benefit from the Battle performance. Ultimately, John chose Samuel as the winner. Check out KJ and Samuel’s performance below:

In another segment during this Voice episode, John and Camila reflected on her time on The X Factor, which led to her being in the chart-topping girl group Fifth Harmony before segueing into an extremely successful solo career. While Camila didn’t mention the show by name, she credited the Simon Cowell franchise for her success and acknowledged the impact of singing competition shows like The Voice in general. Former fans of The X Factor may remember that Camila auditioned for season 2 and initially was eliminated during the “Bootcamp” stage. However, the judges decided to form a girl group with four other eliminated girls, creating the group that would later be re-named Fifth Harmony. Camila left the group in 2016, and the other members disbanded shortly after. Now Camila has proven what she can achieve as a solo artist after all.

With 21 seasons of Battle advisors, Camila is a great choice for this season of The Voice. As a successful music show contestant, she is one of the few advisors who knows what it feels like to be the coaches’ artists. Longtime coach Kelly often mentions her American Idol win while pitching to artists during the Blind Auditions. Her fellow coaches have even joked about how many times she talks about “navigating” a singing competition. In all seriousness, it may be the reason why Kelly has won three seasons, two of which were during her first two seasons on the show. Perhaps more successful singing show alumni should serve as advisors in future seasons of The Voice.

The Voice airs Mondays and Tuesdays at 8pm on NBC.

Sources: Yahoo, The Voice/YouTube