Reba McEntire is shown during the Battles on The Voice Season 26.

(Image credit: Tyler Golden/NBC)

Reba McEntire has been pulling double duty on NBC as a coach on The Voice and starring in the hit new sitcom Happy’s Place. The country superstar joined the singing competition series for Season 24 in 2023, appearing through Season 26 last year. Her artist Asher HaVon won Season 25, and now it’s been revealed that McEntire will be back for the upcoming 28th season on the 2025 TV schedule. Although she’s having a good time now, she actually passed on the gig years ago, and the reason makes complete sense.

Obviously McEntire is no stranger to the industry and has been offering a lot of advice to the singing hopefuls. It was also nice to have another country star on the panel after Blake Shelton left, but even so, it took her a while to agree to do the show. The Reba alum shared on Late Night with Seth Meyers that she did not want to do The Voice because she didn’t want to be such a Negative Nancy:

I was really dreading it at first because I don’t want to tell anybody they suck. I passed on it years ago when it first came over from Holland, and I said, ‘I can’t tell somebody, you know, don’t give up your day job.’ I’m not gonna do that!

It’s not surprising that McEntire didn’t want to do the show at first. It can’t be easy telling someone who is trying to break into the industry and dreams of being a singer that their dreams may be a bit far-fetched. It just shows how much McEntire cares, and if she could, she probably would give everyone a chance if it meant that they could go through. That being said, she did eventually say yes, and is looking forward to returning for Season 28 later this year:

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But the way we did it on the first time I was on The Voice, it was more helpful and encouraging. And everybody that’s coming back now – Snoop, Michael, myself and Niall – we’re nice people. We encourage, we lift up.

Now that McEntire has done a few seasons and she thinks it’s been fun, it will be entertaining to have her back for another season. She also knows what it takes to win, so that also helps, along with her fellow coaches. It’s clear on The Voice that the coaches are as close as ever and always bantering with each other and maybe even giving each other advice, and it seems like that’s one of the big reasons why McEntire keeps returning.

As for her future on The Voice past Season 28, that’s still unclear. With Happy’s Place returning for Season 2 later in the fall, it might all depend on how scheduling works out. It certainly helps that the two are on NBC and probably film on the Universal lot, but it may not be as easy as one would think.

The Voice coaches for Season 28 are pretty stacked, as Reba McEntire will be joined by Snoop Dogg, Niall Horan, and Michael Bublé. There will be many more hopefuls waiting for a shot, and whether or not McEntire will crush their dreams, fans will just have to wait and see.