The Voice: Boy George and Kelly Rowland's spat over Sam Perry gets heated

A CONTROVERSIAL contestant on The Voice is tearing Boy George and Kelly Rowland apart.

The two coaches had a heated argument tonight over Sam Perry, 28, who is a vocal loop artist.

All four coaches wanted the Western Australian to be on their team after his blind audition, but Sam chose to join Team Kelly.

Ever since, Boy George has been questioning whether or not Sam belongs in the competition given he performs with a loop machine and doesn’t rely purely on his voice.

Tonight, Sam went up against two other members of Team Kelly: Emily Green and Madi Krstevski, and Kelly was only allowed to pick one performer to move forward to the next round.

Madi sang Shout Out to My Ex by Little Mix, Emily sang Say You’ll Be There by the Spice Girls and Sam sang Survivor by Destiny’s Child. But before Kelly announced which singer was staying in the competition, Boy George once again questioned whether Sam should be in the running.

“This is a really controversial knockout because ... you’re a bit of a red sock in a white wash,” Boy George said to Sam.

“This is called The Voice and you’re not really a singer. I do think you’re going to divide the nation because there’s a lot of big singers getting sent home and what you’re doing is kind of another area.”

Kelly hit back immediately, telling George, “the show is called The Voice, everything that he was able to do on that pedestal, I wish I could do”.

“George, you are a DJ, you know this like the back of your hand,” she said.

“Absolutely, and that’s why I know it’s DJ’ing and not singing,” Boy George replied.

Kelly argued that Sam is “still using his voice”, but tensions were raised even further when the Destiny’s Child singer accused Boy George of being “intimidated” by Sam’s performance.

“I’m not intimidated,” Boy George yelled back. “I love what you do, Sam, I think you’re awesome ... but if there’s an elephant in the corner playing the banjo I’m going to mention it, OK?”

The two coaches continued to bicker back and forth in the biggest blow up we’ve seen so far this season.

Ultimately Boy George told Kelly, “you’re arguing with yourself!” before Kelly dropped a sassy response that left the audience in stitches.

“I am not arguing with myself, I am arguing with the Queen of England,” she said to Boy George.

Just when we thought the fight was over, Boy George asked the other contestants, Madi and Emily, if they thought it was fair they had to compete against Sam.

And Emily quickly took the bait.

“I really respect what you do but at the same time I feel like you wouldn’t have the same vocal struggles as someone like me or Madi does,” she said to Sam.

“Because what you do is so out of the box it hasn’t got the same restraints, say you were flat or sharp or you had an off day. But in saying that, I really respect everything you do.”

Ouch.

Emily’s opinion didn’t seem to have any bearing on Kelly’s decision though, and she chose Sam to remain on her team and sent the other two packing (although Madi was stolen by Joe Jonas).

Backstage, Sam defended himself and made it clear that everything he does, he does with his voice.

“I didn’t like being called a DJ,” Sam said in reference to Boy George’s comment.

“I get it a lot. A DJ is someone who uses samples of someone else’s music, I create all mine live on the spot with my microphone. I am not a DJ.”

Boy George was right about one thing though, Sam Perry does seem to be dividing the nation.

Viewers took to the The Voice’s Facebook page to share their thoughts and the majority seemed to agree with Boy George.

“It is not fair to have him ... going up against contestants who are using just their voices,” one person wrote. “Next year there should be a rule against this type of contestant.”

“He should be on the X Factor or Got Talent but I’m with Boy George, it’s a show about The Voice and this isn’t that,” another person wrote.

Some people did defend Sam though, with one person writing: “It is his voice regardless of whether it is looped or not. He got four chair turns. If it was a problem, rules should have been set and applied at the auditions instead of belittling the guy on national TV now it’s come to the battle round.”

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