Cee Lo Green let it be known Wednesday he would be giving up his spinning chair on “The Voice.”
Vertigo, he explained.
Actually, he said he had to put in more time to his music career, having not released a solo album in four years.
Like Christina Aguilera, he’d skipped seasons before for outside obligations. Usher and Shakira took over for the two in season four and will do so again when the show returns on Monday. Oddly, Blake Shelton and Adam Levine haven’t had these kinds of conflicts , though their careers have been thriving.
The fact of the matter is that all of the judges on “The Voice” saw a boost in their popularity after they began appearing — and at times, performing — on NBC’s most popular show. The chemistry of the original four judges is what made “The Voice” a contender against “American Idol,” which, like the now-cancelled U.S. version of “The X Factor,” became a kind of revolving door (not chair for celebrities looking for a bump in their career visibility by appearing on a high rated network competition a couple of times a week (the same motivation that gets casts on “Dancing with the Stars”).
Once a critics’ favorite in R&B and cult figure on alternative charts, Cee Lo Green has managed to create a whole, wide persona for himself while on “The Voice,” using outlandish costumes and odd mannerisms like stroking a cat in one seasons, having a bird perched on his shoulder in another. Indeed, his farewell announcement came on that midday platform of normalcy, “The Ellen DeGeneres Show.”
The decision came in contrast to statements he only made a few weeks ago at the TV Critics Association winter press tour promoting a summer show chronicling his reunion with the Goodie Mob, when he vowed to return to “The Voice” “if they’ll have me.”
“I will say,” he added, “I’m human and I have other ambitions that I want to see through that will require my undivided attention. And so with that being said, sometimes it becomes questionable. But anytime I think of ‘The Voice’ just the way that you’re asking me now, I am immediately reminded of how great it is to me, how wonderful it feels to be part of the show and what we’ve accomplished, and so yes, I will gladly go back if they have me.”
That plan changed sometime before Wednesday, when he told DeGeneres, “I have so many other things I want to do.”