My Favorite of All The Bald Contestants on The Voice

I don't know how I ended up being totally sucked into The Voice. It doesn't make sense, considering I've never really been into any reality competition shows outside of Project Runway, Ru Paul's Drag Race, and The Mole (BTW, I'm ready for a reboot of The Mole. I assume the four other people who watched it are too).

So while I don't know why I started watching The Voice in the first place, but I'm so glad I did, because it became one of my latest obsessions. I've been wanting to spread the good word about The Voice, and now that we know who the winner is, I think it's time I shared what I think was the best* part about the show: Beverly McClellan

*It's probably a tie for "The Best" between Beverly and Blake Shelton. I had no idea who he was before the show, and now I think he's one of the best people ever. When he said that Dia was part of his family my hand shot up and I was like, "TEARS."

Beverly stole my heart from her very first performance during the whiplash-chair auditions. I lurved the look on Christina Aguilera's face when her chair turned around and there was a 40-something tattooed lesbian with a shaved head. The point of The Voice was that at first contestants were judged only on their vocal ability, but the judges (Christina most of all) would always, ALWAYS comment on how they wished they had turned around for a good looking person and how they were surprised when they chose a person who was not what they expected. Even though I loved judging Christina's judgements, I was first drawn to Beverly because of her voice.

The nice thing about The Voice is that there were no bad singers on the show, ever. The initial auditions took place off camera until there was a group of "some of the best singers in the country" who would then audition for the judges. This meant that even those who weren't chosen by any judge were still fun to listen to, and got nice feedback from the judges about how they could improve (or hear about how the judges wish they had turned around because the singer turned out to be good looking).

So Beverly's voice was amazing, and she was put on Christina's team because of it. The real thing that made me become a total Beverly fan, though, was her absolute joy in performing. Seriously, never has anyone (anyone!) made performing on stage look so easy and so fun. Watching Beverly perform, I would find myself thinking, "Well, I want to do that! Why am I not doing that?" Only to snap back into reality and realize that what Beverly makes look so easy is most definitely NOT easy, and I'm jealous that she's clearly having THE MOST FUN EVER HAD BY ANY PERSON.

This is my favorite performance of Beverly's, and I love it for so many reasons. I love Melissa Etheridge, I love that Beverly said this was as close as she'd get to wearing a dress, I love that you can see just how much she loves performing, but most of all, during this performance she was SICK and was starting to lose her voice, but she still knocks it out of the park. WHAT.

For the finale performances each artist was given an original song to sing, and Beverly's was the only one that I actually wanted to listen to again. I think it's partly because I liked the song, but mostly because I LOVED watching her perform it. If it were possible for Beverly to have even more fun performing, she did during the finale. Her rendition of "Beautiful" with Christina was totally tear-worthy, because it finally seemed like Christina was actually a fan of Beverly's, and they were singing about acceptance and loving yourself just as you are and well now I'm just tearing up all over again.

I loved watching The Voice's premiere season, and I'll probably watch season two, but I'm not sure anyone can live up to Beverly McClellan's enthusiasm, talent, and sheer joy at sharing her gift with others. I'll leave you with an interview Beverly did before tonight's finale that made my heart grinch. I was going to point out the highlights, but the whole thing is great. BEVERLY is great, and I can't wait to buy her album.