Blake Shelton’s May 16 visit to The Kelly Clarkson Show had it all: Stories about his step-kids, information about his new album, For Recreational Use Only, and one very amazing photo from his childhood pageant days that no Shelton fan should miss.
It was a real turn-back-the-clock moment for the former Voice Coach. Although Kelly Clarkson loves to show the photo on air whenever Shelton stops by, she couldn’t resist showing it to viewers again. (The segment begins at the 13:11 mark in the video embedded above.)
Shelton is adorable and basically unrecognizable as a kid singing into a microphone, with short red hair. The vintage picture sees him sporting a seriously cool black leather jacket with the word “Turbo” on it. Of course, Clarkson couldn’t pass up an opportunity to grill Shelton on the photo in question.
“Look at you, you’re so cute!” Clarkson said. “What are you singing here?”
“I think I was either singing ‘Cat Scratch Fever’ or ‘Lick it Up’ by KISS,” he jokingly said, referencing two wildly inappropriate songs for a kid to perform.
However, Clarkson was immediately on to him.
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“Shut up,” she said, smiling and shaking her head.
“Probably ‘Old Time Rock & Roll’ if I’m guessing,” Shelton finally admitted.
As cute as he was back then, he confessed he couldn’t have pulled off the look alone. Shelton had a little help in the wardrobe department.
“My mom did my hair, dressed me — that was the closest thing we could find [to] Michael Jackson’s jacket we could possibly find,” he said, referring to the very Thriller-esque leather jacket he sported in the photo.
“You were her pageant queen,” Clarkson quipped.
Blake Shelton started his singing career on the pageant circuit
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As longtime fans of the “God Gave Me You” singer know, Clarkson was right on the money with her “pageant queen” comment. Shelton has more than a little experience in that department!
When he was a kid, Shelton’s mom got the idea of bringing her son to local Oklahoma beauty pageants after taking his older sister to them for years. As you could imagine, that particular game plan didn’t always sit well with the future country star.
“It was very humiliating for me,” Shelton explained during a 2001 interview with Access Hollywood. “Because it was like me, I was a 7-year-old boy, with 30 or 40 little girls. I did okay in the talent portion of the pageant, but I told mom, if that’s what I have to do to sing, I don’t want to sing anymore. My beauty pageant days were short-lived.”
