Entertainment
The Voice 2022 winner Anthonia Edwards hopes she can still be a nurse and singer: ‘There are no rules anymore’-Emily Bashforth-Entertainment – Metro
‘The road is wide open from here.’
Meet your new The Voice winner, Anthonia Edwards! (Picture: REX)
Life as she knows it is about to change for Anthonia Edwards, as she starts a new chapter in her life as the winner of The Voice 2022.
With Sir Tom Jones as her coach, the singing competition champ soared to victory following performances to songs including Kesha’s Praying and Katy Perry’s Unconditionally.
Chatting about her win, Anthonia told Metro.co.uk that it’s only just now sinking in after the final was filmed in February, but she’s ‘grateful’ to have had time to adjust to ‘the calm before it gets crazy.’
But before she earned bragging rights at family dinners for the rest of her life by winning The Voice, Anthonia was actually training to be a nurse, something she certainly isn’t ruling out going back to.
On how she came to make the transition from trainee nurse to The Voice star, she said: ‘I sung my whole life. Before I got into nursing I sung in church and I was a backing vocalist for other artists, and I went into nursing because I wanted to explore a different side of my creativity and I absolutely love it. So I’m glad that I’ve registered now.
‘But obviously, when you put something down for a bit, like music, you get that bug again to get back into it, so The Voice came around and I was like, “Ah, let me try, you never know how these things are gonna go. It’ll be fun, I might get through to the blinds then come off, go back to nursing,” but it just kept going.’
The singer started training as a nurse before auditioning for the singing competition (Picture: ITV/Rachel Joseph/REX/Shutterstock)
Despite her love for nursing, Anthonia really wants to give her music a chance to be ‘nurtured’ now, but she’s also eager to tear up the rulebook and show the world that you needn’t be a one-trick pony.
‘I love nursing. I think, right now, I wanna give music the chance to be nurtured and get it to a good place but I feel like there are no rules anymore. You can be a nurse and a singer,’ she shared. ‘I think I can explore that sort of thing but, right now, I’m gonna get my music to a good place and then we’ll see what the future holds.’
As for her relationship with Sir Tom, Anthonia couldn’t speak more highly of the ‘incredible’ Welsh legend, who even had his own cheeky quip about her having qualifications in the medical field.
Sir Tom Jones couldn’t have been more supportive of his team (Picture: ITV/Rachel Joseph/Shutterstock)
Anthonia said the Welsh star really understood her as an artist (Picture: ITV/Rachel Joseph/REX/Shutterstock)
‘When we got to the semi-final, we had a rehearsal when Sir Tom was telling me what song I’d be singing and he just found out that I’d qualified as a nurse so he was like, “Wow, it’s great your qualified if we need you!”, and I was like… I hope we don’t! Let’s not need that skill right now!’, she laughed.
Despite being so different in music tastes and age, Anthonia believes the 82-year-old really ‘gets’ her, and he was constantly ‘reaffirming’ her as an artist during her stint on the show, as were fellow coaches Olly Murs, Will.i.am, and Anne Marie.
‘Every time he had comments, it felt so reassuring and he’s been a great presence,’ she said of the It’s Not Unusual hitmaker.
She beat some stiff competition to be crowned the winner, but insists it was a ‘supportive’ environment with her fellow contestants (Picture: ITV/Rachel Joseph/Shutterstock)
Anthonia is looking forward to establishing herself as an artist and releasing her own music (Picture: ITV/Rachel Joseph/REX/Shutterstock)
Something else Anthonia was keen to praise was the supportive environment on the show amongst both crew and contestants because, well, we’ve all heard the horror stories of reality TV show contestants having bad experiences.
‘They fostered something really safe, from every aspect of the show. It was a really safe environment. The sort of contestants on the show as well, everyone was lovely,’ Anthonia shared, adding that contestants would frequently have ‘banter.’
‘We were very aware that it was a competition but, at the end of the day, we’re all artists and you just want your music to shine so there’s no need to go low.’
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So, what’s next for our new The Voice winner? Well, it all starts with a debut single, and then who knows what the future might hold…
‘I hope to share music that I’ve written, that I’ve created. The road is wide open from here. I’m just gonna have fun, enjoy the journey, and just maintain that attitude of having fun and doing my best, and see what happens.’
Anthonia Edwards’ cover of Anyone by Justin Bieber, released via EMI, is available now.
The Voice is streaming on ITV Hub.
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