NBC’s ‘The Voice’ alum Laith Al-Saadi happy to not win; why?
You gotta love it when people on reality TV are honest, especially when it comes to one of the downsides of “The Voice” in particular: What can happen after the show. There has yet to be a single winner of the show to become a breakout star after the fact, even though Cassadee Pope and Danielle Bradbery have at least had some success on the country charts. One of the reasons for that is just because they don’t have the marketing together, and there are some other disadvantages to winning the show in particular when it comes to control.
This is something that Laith Al-Saadi, who made it all the way to the finale this season, discussed in a new interview with MLive. Specifically, he was not interested in winning the show:
“It’s a 360 deal … It means they represent you in every facet of your life. They really do kind of own you. They own your intellectual property, they own your merchandising, they own the rights to you, and to obviously making records with you and your touring and all that stuff.
“This is probably not going to be popular to say, but I actually never wanted to win. That was my scariest thing even about going into the situation is what that was, to possibly give up. And the thing is, it’s probably foolish of me because that is a wonderful record company, they’re huge, they have immense power compared to what I could do independently or with a small label.”
We get where Laith is coming from, mostly because he’s a guy who has already been doing things his own way for many years. He’s already got a unique sound and a fan base, and probably wouldn’t want to drift from that or have to move somewhere new. The best thing the show does is offer exposure, and if he’s got a chance now to play to larger crowds and continue to do the music that he wants, he probably feels like a winner in his head.
If you were a contestant on the show, would you want to win given some of the strings that are attached to it? Share below, and head over here for some other news right now on “The Voice”! Also, sign up over here to get some other TV news on all we cover, sent right over to you via our CarterMatt newsletter. (Photo: NBC.)