Watch 16-year-old “Voice” contestant's Top 5 performance after opening up about family tragedy

Maggie Fremont
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Ruby Leigh, 16, used music to get her through a tough time for her family following a natural disaster.

The Voice loves a teen singer with a preternatural ability to emote, and in season 24 that honor has gone to Team Reba’s bluegrass artist, 16-year-old Ruby Leigh. Throughout the competition, coaches have remarked on the ease with which Ruby delivers the emotions of a lyric and how she performs with such intention for someone so young. After what was arguably her best performance, of Linda Ronstadt’s “Long, Long Time” in the Playoffs, John Legend noted how it “sounds like [she’s] been through so much.”

In the lead up to her two finale performances on Monday's penultimate episode, host Carson Daly asked her where all that strength comes from — and Ruby Leigh opened up about how and why she seems so mature at such a young age.

<p>Trae Patton/NBC via Getty </p> Ruby Leigh

Trae Patton/NBC via Getty

Ruby Leigh

Her answer is two-fold. First, she tells Carson and coach Reba McEntire that she survived a tornado that caused her family to lose everything. She gets emotional just talking about it, and it’s clear that any time a song calls for her to emote heartbreak and pain and loss, she’s pulling from that time in her life. She sounds like she’s been through so much because she has.

But Reba asks Ruby about why she feels like such an “old soul,” and if she’s always been that way. The answer is yes. After the tornado, Ruby turned to music and she began going to “jam sessions” with adults, knowing that they wouldn’t take her seriously if she didn’t hold her own or acted childish. So, while Ruby is only 16, she’s had a lot of practice channeling both loss and maturity.

In Ruby’s second performance of the night, she reminds us of both those things. Part 1 of The Voice season 24 finale is full of some questionable song choices from every finalist (even Ruby’s choice to do “Suspicious Minds” as her first performance of the night doesn’t do her any favors), but one of the few shining moments of the evening belongs to Ruby Leigh and her cover of “Desperado” by The Eagles. It gave Ruby the perfect opportunity to remind people of the emotion she can bring to a song without overdoing it with huge notes or crazy runs; it’s her clarity and tone that help her express the song’s emotion so well. The coaches certainly love it. Gwen Stefani once again applauds Ruby’s ability to “channel” the song, and tells her it remains “mesmerizing that [she’s] 16 and [she] can sing like that.” Ruby’s own coach commends the song choice: “You know what you can do and you do it so well,” Reba says. With just five artists left, Ruby Leigh certainly sets herself apart from the pack, but has she done enough to take The Voice crown in the season 24 finale? Or will it be one of the other finalists — Huntley, Lila Forde, Mara Justine, and Jacquie Roar — on top at the end?


The Voice season 24 finale airs Tuesday at 8 p.m. ET/PT on NBC.

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