Turns out making entertainment out of rejection doesn’t feel particularly good from the big red chair either.
Reality TV has always leaned extremely hard into fucking with people’s emotions.
Put someone under pressure, wait for the tears, roll cameras. That’s how the masses seem to like their entertainment.
But after 14 years on The Voice UK, will.i.am still hasn’t got comfortable with one fairly obvious part of the job: rejecting people.
The Black Eyed Peas frontman has been a coach on the show since it launched in 2012, and has spoken about how difficult it is sitting through a Blind Audition and choosing not to turn his chair.
He’s doling out rejection to singers who have often spent years trying to get somewhere with music, only for them to walk onto national television and perform to the backs of four chairs.
If nobody turns, suddenly you’re experiencing a very rough moment in your life – aired for all to see on prime-time TV, no less.
will.i.am has said he can relate to that feeling because he remembers the knock-backs that came before his own success. He knows what it’s like to leave meetings having been told no and wonder whether anything is actually going to happen.
That probably explains why he can look genuinely uncomfortable when contestants get knocked back.
Because he knows it hurts.
Reality TV audiences seem to love a bit of emotional bloodsport, but at least one person in the big red chairs still appears to feel bad about it.
Fourteen years later, will.i.am is still there, and by all accounts saying no hasn’t got any easier. But it sure is reassuring that he hasn’t become completely numb to it.
