Season 23 of NBC's "The Voice" wrapped up Tuesday with a new winner who hails from a small town in Illinois.
Gina Miles, 19, who grew up about 120 miles south of Chicago in Paxton, Illinois, on coach Niall Horan's team, beat out finalists Grace West and NOIVAS on Team Blake, D. Smooth on Team Kelly, and sister trio Sorelle on Team Chance.
Earlier in the night, before the winner was announced Miles performed "New York State of Mind" alongside Horan.
In a Facebook video interview earlier this year with Bloomington-Normal radio station B104, Miles says she moved from Paxton to Sacramento on her 18th birthday.
"My hometown is the most supportive community I could possibly ask for," Miles said, after sharing that friends, as well as teachers and classmates from the small Paxton school she attended reached out.
"I'm really happy to hear from all my teachers especially," Miles said. "I was shy and quiet in school," Miles goes on to say, adding that while she was in choir, she was never the "front man."
In Sacramento, Miles lives close to her aunt, while her dad and stepmom remain in Illinois.
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"My family is so proud. I just wanted to make my family proud, and show them that I could do this," Miles said.
While the win the first for new coach Niall Horan, the season is the last for veteran coach Blake Shelton.
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Shelton, who has been a part of the show since it premiered in 2011 with Levine, Christina Aguilera and CeeLo Green — was bid farewell with appearances by his former winners and coaches, TODAY.com reports. Gwen Stefani, who met her now-husband when she was a coach in 2014, also sent in a video message touching on how their lives changed while on the show and how she found her “soulmate.”
“When I first came on the show, our lives were having this parallel destruction happening and then next thing you know Blake and I start becoming besties and falling in love,” Stefani says in the clip. “It’s hard for me to even talk about it without getting super emotional.”
