Credit: NBC

All products and services featured are independently chosen by editors. However, Soaps.com may receive a commission on orders placed through its retail links, and the retailer may receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes.

After 10 seasons, The Voice‘s second-longest-serving coach, Adam Levine, is finally back in his red swivel chair. But with Levine’s return also comes answers about his time on the NBC reality TV singing competition — and why he really left in the first place all those years ago.

Levine — who was one of four original coaches on The Voice along with Blake Shelton, Christina Aguilera, and CeeLo Green — announced his exit from the series in an Instagram post in 2019 after the Season 16 finale.

“About 8 years ago, Mark Burnett convinced us to sign up for this show where you sit in a big red chair with your back turned away from the singers on the stage,” Levine captioned a post with him, Green, Aguilera and Shelton. “First thank you must go to Mark. ❤️ We had no idea what we were doing or where it was going. After the first day of shooting, I sat there, stunned. I said to myself ‘theres some magic here. Something is definitely happening.’ It went on to be a life shaping experience that will be close to my heart forever. Thank you NBC for signing me up. I am truly honored to have been a part of something I’ll always cherish for the rest of my life.”

Six years later and Levine is back as a coach on The Voice Season 26 with coaches Gwen Stefani, Reba McEntire and Snoop Dogg. But why did Levine leave The Voice in the first place and why did he come back?

Why did Adam Levine leave The Voice?

In an interview on The Howard Stern Show in 2019, Levine explained that he left The Voice simply because he felt like he had been filming the show long enough.

“I was ready to not be doing it anymore, I think for a little bit,” he said. “I think that when it all kind of naturally happened, I was like, ‘Okay, it feels right.’ For better or worse, the moment in which we decided to walk away felt really good. It was the right time for me to go.”

The Maroon 5 singer — who shared two young daughters, Dusty Rose and Gio Grace, at the time with his wife, Behati Prinsloo — also explained that he left The Voice to spend more time with his family. (Levine and Prinsloo have since welcomed a third child, a son whose name hasn’t been revealed.) “They were really little,” he said.

Levine also hinted that wanting to spend more time with his family was also the main reason he left The Voice in a later interview on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. “I do miss it, but I also don’t miss how much I had to work. I was just constantly working for many years. Very lucky, very fortunate, very blessed and all that, but just to be able to stop in this moment to spend time with my new young family and just have the greatest time ever… ” he said.

Levine’s exit also came after TVLine reported in 2019 that the Maroon 5 singer had become “very difficult” to work with on the series and allegedly refused to offer commentary to other judges’ performers. The site also reported that Levine was frustrated at having to promote The Voice Season 16 at NBC’s Upfronts presentation at the time when he had no contestants left in the competition.

Levine’s early elimination from The Voice came after a rule change in Season 16 that didn’t guarantee each coach would make it to the Live Playoffs with the same number of contestants. Instead, Season 16’s Live Cross Battles, which replaced the Knockout rounds, cut his team from eight to four before leaving him with no contestants in the Semifinals. (In Season 15, the Knockouts sent each coach to the Playoffs with six contestants.)

A source also told TVLine that Levine’s allegedly unenthusiastic performance at NBC’s Upfront presentation with fellow judges Shelton, Kelly Clarkson, and John Legend was what ultimately led to him leaving The Voice. “Adam had been checked out for a while,” a source told the site. “But this was a new low. It was essentially the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

TVLine reported that Paul Telegedy, NBC Entertainment’s co-chairman at the time, witnessed Levine’s performance and was “embarrassed” and “furious” that Levine would behave such a way in front of advertisers. A source also told the site that Telegedy called for Levine to immediately be fired but later backed off on the position. In the endThe , Levine’s exit from The Voice seemed to be agreed upon by both parties, according to another insider. “This was, at the very least, a mutual decision,” the source said.