The Voice coach's surprising act for 2024 winner: 'Above and beyond'

The Voice Australia has seen a string of high-profile musicians take on the role of ‘coach’ since the series premiered in 2012, each with a very different mentorship style and set of boundaries with their contestants. While recent winners Tarryn Stokes and Lachie Gill revealed shortly after their season they were no longer in contact with their coach Rita Ora, 2021 champion Bella Taylor Smith notably went on tour with her coach Guy Sebastian following her win.

Fans will have to wait and see how the relationships between this year’s contestants and their coaches evolve after the reality show, however, things are already looking pretty good for 2024 winner Reuben De Melo and US superstar LeAnn Rimes. The pair developed quite a strong connection on the series, beginning when LeAnn used the ‘ultimate block’ to secure Reuben on her team and eventuating in a powerful duet singing Coldplay’s ‘Fix You’ in Sunday night’s finale.

Speaking with Yahoo Lifestyle following the episode, Reuben admits that he didn’t know who LeAnn was before auditioning but she “turned out to be a godsend”.

“She actually keeps in touch and she's done so much for me,” he gushes. “Even though she's an absolute star in this industry, she’s come down to my level and just really guided me through and empathised with me the whole time. She went above and beyond to get me over the line and I owe a lot of stuff to her.”

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The FIFO worker reveals that the Can’t Fight The Moonlight hitmaker even went so far as to send his family a gift when he and his wife Olivia recently welcomed their third child together.

“She's always keeping in touch, always involved in family, and I think I’d probably call her a friend now,” he remarks.

“She even woke up at 2am to watch the finale, which she normally doesn’t do. Unfortunately, my phone had died just before the winner was announced so we were trying to get in touch. It was so bad, but I messaged her on my wife's phone and told her that we’d brought it home.”

How Reuben plans on spending $100,000 prize money

In addition to his close friendship with LeAnn, Reuben walked away from The Voice with $100,000 in prize money, an industry recording development package, and a music masterclass. Post-show, Reuben says he plans on using the money to become debt-free while also honing in on his craft.

“I’ve got a couple of Telstra bills that I've been avoiding, so I’ll pay those off and maybe fuel up right to the click,” he laughs. “$100k is probably going to help us out with a lot of repayments like our mortgage and a bit of work around the house as well.

“They might be small things, but they are freeing things - things that will allow me to just completely be creative and maybe plan a tour or something like that. Something that I can actually go, ‘Okay, I can just go and do this stuff and not have to worry about anything’.”

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He adds that his “number one priority” is figuring out how to make music work for him “rather than having to always worry about finances”.

“But also, just planning to release music with others, collaborate with other artists, and just release music. That’ll be the next step,” he says.

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