Ousted Team Kelly Singer Says He Didn’t Break COVID Protocol, NBC Responds
on Dec 07, 2020
Last Monday (Nov. 30), on The Voice, Team Kelly was one member short. Opera singer Ryan Gallagher was nowhere to be seen.
He had Blake Shelton and Kelly Clarkson fighting for him after his Blind Audition, but he joined Clarkson’s team. He coasted through the Battle Round and onto the Knockouts, where he competed in the rare 4-Way Knockout Round. The winner was revealed on the November 30th episode, but host Carson Daly revealed it would be between three singers, instead of four.
“Last week, one artist from each team competed in a heated Four-Way Knockout. Will Team Blake’s Taryn Papa, Team Legend’s Julia Cooper and Team Gwen’s Larriah Jackson all join me now? As a side note, Team Kelly’s Ryan Gallagher had to exit the competition so the Four-Way winner was decided with the votes received from these three remaining artists,” Daly said.
There was no other mention of the opera singer in the episode, which left fans with lots of questions as to why he was no longer on the show. It was previously revealed that his mother was battling COVID-19, so many thought it had something to do with her health.
The singer took to his Instagram stories during the episode to say, “Thank you everybody for your concern for my family. However, everybody’s fine, that’s not the cause of what happened tonight on ‘The Voice.’ I didn’t drop out of the show. Details are still to come, I’ll keep you posted.”
Entertainment Tonight reported that Gallagher was forced to leave the show because he “broke The Voice’s strict COVID protocols out of concern for keeping the coaches, crew and fellow competitors safe.”
The singer’s manager has since spoken out on this claim, saying, “Last Sunday my client Ryan Gallagher, who was a leading contender as part of Kelly Clarkson’s team on the current season of NBC-TV’s The Voice, was dismissed by NBC and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios for an alleged violation of the show’s Covid 19 protocol. In my opinion, nothing could be further from the truth.“
Gallagher’s manager also noted that his mother had been hospitalized for three weeks from the virus, so he would be the last person to break protocol, knowing first hand how serious COVID-19 is.
NBC responded with a statement of their own:
“Ryan is a talented artist, however The Voice has strict Covid protocols in place to secure a safe set for our crew, coaches and contestants. We were made aware of a breach in those protocols, and after examining the situation, and out of abundance of caution, we determined that Ryan could not participate in our Monday night show without potentially putting others at risk. Therefore, we made the difficult decision to remove Ryan from the competition.”
In an Instagram post on Dec. 4, Gallagher shared a video of him singing “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas,” and wrote, “It’s been a weird/stressful week. I am grateful to each and every one of you for your continued support and love throughout this new development. Standby for more facts!”
Take a look at it below.
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