The Voice: Blake Shelton Talks New Coaches & Cassadee Pope’s Future — I’ll Help Her ‘Any Way I Can’

Blake Shelton is a proud coach – for the second season in a row, a member of his team (Cassadee Pope) has won “The Voice.”

“My ego is almost as big as my beer belly at this point and that’s huge,” Blake told AccessHollywood.com’s Laura Saltman with a laugh following Wednesday evening’s Season 3 finale. “To be sitting there in the finale and knowing that it’s down to Cassadee and Terry [McDermott] — they’re both Team Blake members. I couldn’t lose at that point.”

The past two “Voice” winners, Javier Colon and Jermaine Paul, have yet to become household names following their respective wins, but Blake plans to do everything in his power to ensure Cassadee has a successful career in music.

“Cassadee knows this, this doesn’t end with the finale of ‘The Voice’ with she and I and I’m here for her to help her in any way I can,” he said. “Whether it’s making the right decisions with record companies and with managers and booking agents and things — I mean she’s one of the most famous people in the United States right now and I don’t even know if she realizes that.

“She needs people who have her best interest at heart and I don’t have a dog in the hunt. I don’t have a dime to make off of Cassadee, I just love her as a person and I’m somebody who’s in this business and I’ve seen the ups and downs,” he added. “I know who’s good and who’s not and I’m a friend to her. And she knows that and I’ll be there with her every step of the way as long as she wants me to be. It doesn’t end tonight.”

While Wednesday’s finale was triumphant for the country superstar, it was also bittersweet, as it was his last with coaches Cee Lo Green and Christina Aguilera (the two singers are taking Season 4 off and will be temporarily replaced by Usher and Shakira).

“The four of us, I feel like we helped build this show, along with [host] Carson [Daly]. And to know that they won’t be here for Season 4, it’s weird. I mean, I’m not going to lie to ya,” he said.

Though the change will take some adjustment, Blake has faith in Shakira and Usher’s coaching potential as he believes they’re both “talented” and “fun.”

“It will be different. I’m not saying it won’t be great, it’ll probably be great, I don’t know yet — we’ll all find out,” he said of the coach changeup. “But [it’s hard] to see a couple of friends go away for a while [doing] what we all love them doing, which is sitting in those red chairs.”

— Erin O’Sullivan

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