It's not your usual day in Cypress, Texas. The Houston suburb typically makes small, very local news for things like getting a new ice house, or seeing a high school basketball star sign with a mid major, or rejoicing that a bookworm with top grades lands on the dean's list at Mercer University.
Now it's garnering major national — and even international — headlines, courtesy of a perky blonde teen with big vocals.
Bradbery says she'd never sung to a large crowd prior to the reality show. Instead, her mirror enjoyed most of her croons.
Voice champion Danielle Bradbery is certainly giving everyone, including judge/coach/country music star Blake Shelton, something to talk about.
Yet amid all the attention being heaped on Cypress and its 16-year-old hometown champ, there's another Houston suburb that deserves a little love: Danielle Simone Bradbery was actually born in League City.
Emerging as the winner of the fourth season of NBC's The Voice means Bradbery is $100,000 richer, for starters. Of course, the major record deal with University Music Group looms even more important.
While the winning decision came out of a vote that's the collective sum of viewers' phone calls, Internet polls, text messages and iTunes purchases, it's impossible to discount the impact of Shelton's repeated overwhelming endorsements of Bradbery. Shelton calling someone "the most important artist to ever walk across The Voice stage" resonates.
After a winning performance that included a duet with cutie-pie Hunter Hayes in "I Want Crazy" and solo selections of Sara Evans' "Born to Fly" and Pam Tillis' "Maybe It Was Memphis" — the latter two reaching the top 10 chart on iTunes — Shelton tells Entertainment Weekly that Bradbery may be the first person truly discovered on the show. Previous contestants had dabbled in show biz before they ever stepped on the TV stage.
Bradbery says she'd never sung to a large crowd prior to the reality show. Instead, her mirror enjoyed most of her croons (which, as you can see from the powerful video above, was a shame.)
The youngest winner ever rose above two much older finalists: Michelle Chamuel (26) and the Swon Brothers, Colton (24) and Zach (27). That's no small win for Cypress. Or League City.
Danielle Simone Bradbery, 16, won season four of NBC's The Voice.
