Daniel Passino was eliminated from The Voice this week after performing a sing off against Nick Hagelin from Team Christina Aguilera. In an interview with Reality TV World, the singer noted the lack of support from his coach Pharrell Williams after a less than stellar performance of “Uptown Funk.”
“When it became my coach’s turn to try to defend me, I didn’t feel like he really did that,” Daniel said.
“My own coach didn’t really — not that he didn’t stick up for me, but he didn’t… I mean, I think that was evident too on Tuesday with the results show.”
It’s true. When it was Pharrell’s turn to speak after Daniel’s performance, he never asked viewers at home to support his team member. Instead, the coach delivered what amounted to a goodbye and good luck speech.
Daniel felt particularly alone, as the three remaining coaches urged fans at home to stick by Nick.
“There were three coaches vouching for Nick — who did a phenomenal job, let me add, a phenomenal job — but you had three coaches vouching for Nick. You had Christina standing on her chair telling everyone to vote for Nick. When it was my turn, it was almost [the opposite],” Daniel said.
“My brother described it as a ‘eulogy,’ you know what I mean? But it’s alright,”
It must have come as a shock to Nick–after Pharrell picked him as his bring back artist for the finals and spent their time together going on about Daniel’s artistry and star power–to be abandoned once it was clear the gig was up.
Granted, Daniel delivered a jaw-droppingly bad performance that would be hard to defend. But the least Pharrell could have done was to continue to cheerlead to the bitter end. What’s the point of hurting his feelings as he was about to be eliminated? Truth time needed to come weeks ago when Daniel could have used some pointers on how to dial back the jazz hands and deliver a performance that connects to an audience.
The singer also took issue with how Christina (his former coach) and Pharrell called him out on pitch issues after Monday night’s performance of “Don’t Want to Miss a Thing.”
“It was interesting. Me and Pharrell have a wonderful relationship. He’s one of the best human beings I think I’ve met here in the duration of my time on the show. But just even Monday night, Christina said there were intonation problems, but I didn’t think that was [an issue],” Daniel said.
“I mean, you can listen to the performance and judge for yourself, but I think there have been multiple times on the show when singers had intonation issues that have never been said, never brought up. And actually, their performances were praised. And we’re so far along in the show, that that never happens. So, it was just interesting that the coaches even said that.”
Your time was up Daniel, and as we singing show super-fans say: A bus came with your name on it and done run over you. ETA: Actually, Daniel DID have pitch problems on Monday. His glory note was screachingly off pitch. He should really watch that back if he hasn’t. Still, it must have been confusing, because he’d never been called on ANYTHING before (when he should have).
“It wasn’t his decision,” he conceded about the part Pharrell played in his elimination. “It was just my time to go this week unfortunately.”
For more measured words from Daniel about his The Voice experience, here’s the official After the Elimination video. Watch as Pharrell gives Daniel a pep talk moments after the elimination. He asks the singer, several times, what he plans to do with the show’s momentum, as Daniel looks at him like he has three heads. I FEEL SO ATTACKED RIGHT NOW Daniel must have been thinking.
https://youtu.be/xVpXUB_7cTo
