From her very first blind audition on The Voice through to her emotional duet of Andrea Bocelli’s The Prayer with coach Guy Sebastian, 23-year-old Bella Taylor Smith wowed audiences and moved us to tears with her powerful vocals.
In a nail-biting finale on Sunday night, Bella was announced the winner of season 10 and took home $100,000 plus, a recording contract with EMI.
The finale, which was pre-recorded with alternate endings, was kept top secret, with not even the contestants knowing who would win before the card was read out.
So, it’s pretty safe to assume that Bella is still celebrating in her home after the big victory.
But despite her sudden catapult to fame, Bella plans on spending her winnings wisely.
“I am so behind, I have so many bills to pay and haven’t been able to work obviously because of Covid,” she told The Daily Telegraph.
“The feeling of not having debt anymore is honestly the most overwhelming thing and so surreal. I can’t wait to pay off some bills.”
However, the singing teacher admitted her debt is “enough for it to not be easy to fix”.
“It has been challenging but this is the biggest blessing,” she added.
“It feels a bit surreal to not have to worry about that anymore and to save potentially to buy a house one day and all of those things feel a bit more possible now, which is amazing.”
The church singer told TV WEEK on Monday that she was completely shocked to discover she won.
“I just think you don’t know these kinds of things until you know, and all of the top four were so so deserving like I really mean it, they’re incredibly talented in their own rights. So, I could never bring myself to assume or to think it would probably be me,” she said.
Bella said her and coach Guy bonded not just over their passion for music but also over their faith.
“I think, you know, faith is a really important part of my life, and not to speak for Guy, but I know it’s something that is really important for him as well,” she said.
“And those values and kind of life lessons that come along with that is something that can be really defining for an individual, so I felt like he really understood where I was coming from and could understand what I was passionate about.”