The country music star Blake Shelton recently spoke out to recall the tough love pep talk that his fellow singer Billy Ray Cyrus gave him over twenty years ago, and he hasn’t forgotten it to this day.
Shelton Gets Advice From Cyrus
While being interviewed by the late night host Jimmy Kimmel earlier this month, Shelton remembered how Cyrus gave him a tough love pep talk before he made his first television appearance way back in 2001. Shelton, now 47, admitted that he was “scared to death” to take the stage at the CMAs, where he was tasked with doing a commercial bumper by teasing who was coming up next before singing about 20 seconds of his song “Austin.”
As Shelton stood in the wings waiting to go on, he was approached by Cyrus, who immediately introduced himself and asked how Shelton was doing.
“And I go, ’Man, I’m scared to death. I’m scared to death right now to walk out there,’” Shelton recalled. “And he goes, ‘What do you mean?’ And I go, ‘I’ve just never been on TV, and I’ve got to sing.’”
Cyrus, however, was not having any of it.
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‘You Need To Toughen Up’
“I remember that was his pep talk to me,” Shelton recalled. “He probably doesn’t remember that, but I’m telling you, as a young 23-year-old kid or whatever I was, I was like, ‘Oh my god, you’re right.’”
Kimmel responded by joking that Cyrus may have been on to something because if you have “‘Achy and Breaky’ in the title of your song. Yes, people are going to make fun of you.”
“Billy had had a rough stretch at that point,” Shelton jokingly agreed.
Check out this full interview in the video below.
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Shelton Overcomes Fears Of Being On TV
It’s somewhat ironic that Shelton was initially terrified of going on television, given the fact that he would later spend 23 seasons serving as a hugely successful coach on the hit NBC television show “The Voice” from 2011 until he left the show in May of this year. Shelton even coached alongside Cyrus’ daughter Miley when she signed on as a coach during seasons 11 and 13 of the show.
“It’s bittersweet,” Shelton wrote on Instagram as he reflected on his exit from “The Voice.” “When we signed up for season 1, I don’t think any of us knew what this was going to be…”
We’re so glad to see that Shelton overcome his fears of being on television, and that he’s never forgotten the advice that Cyrus gave him all those years ago. In the end, we could all learn a lot from Cyrus’ advice about toughening up a bit!
