Season 21 of The Voice is coming our way in a little less than a month, and fans are already very excited about a number of aspects of the new season of the hit singing competition. Along with the inclusion of first time coach Ariana Grande, we'll also be treated to a new set of advisors who'll help to lead the competitors through the all important Battle Round. One of those will be country music superstar Dierks Bentley, who's on board to assist long-time coach Blake Shelton with his team, and Bentley has jokes about Shelton and not being invited to his wedding with Gwen Stefani.
Watching the celebrity advisors assist the coaches (who also include the returning Kelly Clarkson and John Legend for The Voice Season 21) as they prep their teams for the Battle Round has always been a favorite among fans. Not only do we get some see some new perspectives on the competing talent, but we get to see how each coach vibes with their chosen advisor. Blake Shelton and Dierks Bentley have been country music hit makers for a long time, and while the two know each other pretty well, it sounds like Bentley has some thoughts on not being invited to his bud's big day with Gwen Stefani. As he told Entertainment Tonight:
Well, I got an invitation to the first wedding, but I didn't get an invitation to the second, so I know who invited me.
Oooooh! See, this is how we know that Bentley and Shelton are totally cool, as I doubt most people could get away with a comment like this, which is kinda a double burn. Not only is he poking at the fact that he was clearly not invited to his friend's much talked about wedding to pop queen and sometime fellow The Voice coach Stefani, but Bentley managed to do it while referencing Shelton's previous marriage to Miranda Lambert (who's doing just fine now, by the way). If that's not friendship privilege at work, I don't know what is.
Even though Bentley didn't get an invite to Shelton's big event, he likely knows how difficult it was for the couple to try and plan a wedding after becoming engaged in October 2020. Like many who were planning celebrations, they wanted to wait until they could actually gather at least some of the family and friends they hadn't been in isolation with. The newlyweds were able to do that early in July, and Shelton has already opened up about needing to keep the ceremony small and being very selective about which friends could attend. And, Bentley noted that he's "so happy for him" that it all worked out.
While Dierks Bentley and The Voice's winningest coach have been friends for years (and even each own neighboring bars on Broadway in downtown Nashville), recent conditions haven't exactly made it easy for the buddies to pop over and visit one another. This means that it had been a while since they saw each other in person, and it made for an interesting reunion. According to Bentley:
It was amazing. It was so great seeing him [on The Voice]. We hadn't seen each other in a long time. He saw me and my hair's really long. He's like 'whoa,' didn't recognize me right away. His hair's really grey now, so I didn't recognize him. [Laughs.]
Lots of people are going through similar meetings with friends and family members right now, so it's lucky for us that we'll get to see some of this go down between Blake Shelton and Dierks Bentley on The Voice once the show returns to NBC, at 8 p.m. EST, on September 20.
