When she was six years old, teenage singer Hannah Pearce’s father David was killed by a roadside bomb while serving in Afghanistan. He was just 41.
And while he isn’t here today to see her perform on The Voice, the 16-year-old knows how happy he’d be.
“I don’t know what he would say, but I know he’d be proud I gave it a go,” Hannah (right) tells TV WEEK.
She says her dad’s passion for bands such as Guns N’ Roses, Poison and Metallica has influenced her greatly.
“My sister and I would jam out every night,” Hannah recalls. “My mum loves music, but my dad loved it even more. He wanted us to get into it [music].”
Hannah chose to perform Elvis Presley’s iconic Can’t Help Falling In Love for her audition, which saw The Voicecoach Kelly Rowland almost immediately turn her chair.
“You made us feel something,” the former Destiny’s Child star told the young contestant in the emotional episode. “A lot of artists don’t leave their heart on the stage the way you did today.
“That’s why I turned around because my heart was like ‘girl, what are you doing right now?’ We just connected.”
Hannah has only ever performed at school and confesses she found the audience’s warm response to her blind audition overwhelming.
“I don’t know why, but I started crying,” she says.
We can’t wait to see what Hannah does next in the competition!