The Voice: Dua Lipa as mentor shares singing secrets with teens covering her hit Scared To Be Lonely

Dua Lipa shared her singing secrets on Monday’s episode of The Voice as she guided two teenagers through her hit Scared To Be Lonely.

As the mentor for Kelly Clarkson’s team in the show’s battle rounds, Dua, 24, seemed delighted to hear the way they tweaked the song.

For their part, contestants Anaya Cheyenne, 16, from Atlanta and Chelle, 19, from Bargersville, Indiana, were thrilled to find out who their mentor was.

‘Anaya, Chelle, nice to see you again,’ Kelly, 37, said, before springing Dua on them in the rehearsal space, yelling, ‘Dua, come on in here!’

Dua walked into the room in a day-glo yellow dress with heels and gold safety pin earrings, hugging the teens and laughing as she saw how excited they were.

‘Don’t feel any pressure,’ Dua said. ‘I’m so honored you’re doing this, and I’m so excited.’

‘Oh my gosh, we’re going to sing a Dua Lipa song in front of Dua Lipa right now,’ noted Chelle, who hailed from an incredibly small town. ‘That’s just insane.’

As she and Anaya sang Dua’s song, Kelly pointed out that there were a number of purely instrumental sections, and looked to Dua for guidance.

‘That’s normally when I’m onstage and I just end up headbanging the whole time,’ Dua said. ‘I like to call it mosh pop, ’cause I definitely find myself moshing for most of the song.’

She encouraged the girls to embrace the song’s vulnerability, suggesting as she sang lines to them that they hold back at the beginning so they had more to give at the end.

‘Bite down on the words a bit,’ Kelly agreed, singing as she told Anaya to capture the song’s ‘ache.’

‘Tell a story with the way that you’re singing it,’ Dua echoed. ‘When you get to the chorus, it’s so loud. Allow that to be a kind of journey and a trajectory to that point.’

‘The song is essentially coming to the understanding that you’re in a relationship for the wrong reasons. And maybe the only reason we’re together is because we’re scared to be lonely,’ the Grammy winner told the teens.

After hearing the contestants sing her hit, Dua started to get ideas of her own.

‘It was really exciting to see it done quite differently, and it was so inspiring because I was like, ”Oh, maybe I should try something”,’ she mused.

Dua suggested that the girls repeat a key lyric twice so they could have both a ‘vulnerable’ moment and ‘a really big one.’

‘Holding on tonight, ’cause we’re scared to be lonely,’ she sang, as Kelly plopped her head on her fist and stared at Dua.

‘I just got serenaded by you,’ she said, grinning. ‘That was nice.’

Kelly then sang part of the song, giving it more attitude and urging her singers to do the same.

‘That’s my favorite part of Dua,’ she explained. ‘She has so much attitude when she sings. It’s just innate in her.’

Going into the battle rounds, Kelly wanted to see who pushed themselves the most, and she ended up with Anaya, who had the attitude she craved and was ‘a perfect coachable artist.’

‘Let me ask you something,’ coach Nick Jonas, 27, asked Kelly. ‘In your second performance, did you feel like a star yet?’

‘I’m 37, I’ve been doing it for 17 years, and I still don’t,’ Kelly replied, laughing.

Blake Shelton, 43, brought Bebe Rexha, 30, along to guide his contestants, saying, ‘I not only feel like she could be a good mentor, I also feel like she could be a great coach, even.’

‘I like eighties rock,’ Blake told Bebe. ‘Do you like eighties rock?’

‘I mean, my mom used to play it in the house,’ Bebe offered, which made Blake feel old.

For his first battle, Blake paired Joei Fulco, 23, from Lancaster, California, and Todd Michael Hall, 50, from Saginaw, Michigan, on Tina Turner’s You’re The Best.

Both ‘classic rock’ singers had an edge: Todd played in a heavy metal band called Harlet in the 1980s, while Joei practiced mixed-martial arts when not gigging with her family’s band.

Onstage, the high notes that Todd hit proved challenging for Joei to circumvent, but Blake chose her anyway, saying her voice had ‘something truly magical about it.’

When Todd walked offstage, Kelly pushed her button to steal him, but Blake had already beaten her to it, aware that the singer’s talents would be useful at a later time.

Under a new show rule, any contestant who lost a battle but was saved by his or her coach could come back for a four-way group battle, though only one of them would win.

Blake’s second battle paired Levi Watkins, 14, from Birmingham, Alabama, and Jamal Corrie, 27, from San Francisco.

They performed a duet of OneRepublic’s Counting Stars.

The two singers had played Ed Sheeran’s Perfect together when they were waiting to audition for the show, and were thrilled to be paired again.

‘It’s intimidating to go up against Jamal,’ admitted Levi, whose voice cracked when he sang. ‘He’s got an impressive range, and I’m this little kid whose voice hasn’t matured.’

After their battle, Blake noted that Jamal’s performance was ‘pitchier,’ and he opted to stick with Levi. 

Nick chose his Jonas Brothers bandmates, siblings Joe Jonas, 30, and Kevin Jonas, 32, as mentors.

‘I brought two of the most unintelligent people I could find just so I could look better,’ he joked.

‘Oh my gosh,’ gasped contestant Joanna Serenko, 18, when she saw them. ‘You guys were my first concert.’

Nick asked Joanna and his other vocalist Roderick Chambers, 38, to put an R&B spin on Billie Eilish’s When The Party’s Over, adding an extra harmony to make it special.

‘All very good advice,’ Joe told him. ‘You should do this for a living.’

After hearing the duo’s sultry exchange onstage, Kelly stood up and said, ‘Wow. That was really good,’ calling it her ‘favorite battle thus far… effortless and beautiful and passionate.’

Nick went with his ‘gut feeling’ and picked Roderick, a Miami native, saying ‘there’s an opportunity here to turn this guy into a real star.’ 

John Legend, 40, then stole Joanna, from St. Louis, whom he called ‘flawless.’

For his mentor, John chose singer Ella Mai, 25, with whom he’d recently collaborated on the song Everything.

He pitted Mike Jerel, 31, from Ashburn, Georgia, against Zach Day, 26, from Stearns, Kentucky, on a cover of Miguel’s Adorn.

John initially worried that the duo was not embracing the sexiness of the song, but by the end he called their harmonies ‘tasty.’

In the battle round, they showed confidence, ‘one-upping each other at every turn,’ Nick said.

‘We have certain expectations that this song needs to be delivered convincingly, and wow, you guys delivered it convincingly,’ John agreed, ultimately picking Mike for his ‘swagger.’

His second battle found Michael Wilson, 18, from Mason, Ohio, facing off against Allegra Miles, 17, from St. John’s in the US Virgin Islands.

The two pop artists sang Sam Smith’s cover of Whitney Houston’s How Will I Know, which Nick had chosen for its vulnerability.

To relax, they and their mentors began rehearsal with a scream, ‘like Joe does,’ Nick noted.

Nick then taught Michael to control his falsetto by restricting his breath, and urged both contestants to move their bodies as they sang, to show they were ‘digging for it.’

‘Allegra, I am in love with your voice,’ Kelly told her after she performed, calling her tone ‘a finale tone.’

Nick agreed, choosing to keep Allegra before going on to save Michael, too.

The Voice will return next week on NBC.