Months after The Voice blind auditions aired on NBC, the show has just crowned its season 19 winner — and this year, it’s 15-year-old Carter Rubin of Team Gwen who came out on top.
Carter ended up scoring the most votes from American viewers after the singer gave two moving finale performances. First, he won fans over with his powerful rendition of Miley Cyrus’s “The Climb.” Surprising everyone, Carter then chose to sing his own original song called “Up From Here.”
In order to win the competition, Carter had to beat out his fellow equally gifted finalists Desz (from Team Kelly), John Holiday (from Team Legend), Jim Ranger (from Team Blake), and Ian Flanigan (from Team Blake), who all gave stunning performances this past Monday night.
The very first time Carter walked on stage, both John Legend and Gwen Stefani knew he had star potential. In his blind audition, Carter ultimately picked Gwen as his mentor after both coaches begged him to join their teams. From then on, Gwen continued to picked Carter to advance in the battle and knockout rounds. In the live shows, at-home audiences proved furthermore with their own votes that they loved Carter’s talent as much as Gwen did.
When Carter was named the winner of The Voice by host Carson Daly, the artist’s fans at home couldn’t contain their excitement online. “Congratulations on the win!! Carter has been a favorite since. The beginning!!! He is so talented to be so young!!” one viewer tweeted. “Way to go GWEN! Carter is phenomenal!!!,” another said.
Of course, this year was extremely competitive and the level of talent was high. Because of this, fans of the other finalists — in particular, runner up Jim Ranger’s fans — seemed disappointed. ” Ok, Carter is Good. But, it should have been JIM RANGER!!” someone tweeted. “@Jimranger is the winner in our hearts,” a different fan declared. “Well that was disappointing. Carter was good but in my book you had the real winner with Jim,” a viewer said.
Fan reactions aside though, we know one person besides Carter who is super excited right now — his coach, Gwen. Carter’s victory marks Gwen’s first and only win on The Voice since first joining the show in season 7. Making things sweeter, she denied her fiancé, Blake Shelton, his eighth win overall.
