Will.I.Am ‘to leave The Voice’ after six years

Be strong, The Voice fans, for we have some (potentially) sad news for you.

Everyone's favourite Black Eyed Pea-turned-singing contest judge, Will.I.Am, might just have performed his last chair swivel. Having seen his act, Donel Mangena, lose to Ruti Olajugbagbe in Saturday night's final, it's been revealed that he is considering leaving the show in order to return to making music of his own. "It’s been six years and seven seasons," he told Daily Star Sunday. "Now I’m going to get emotional. I haven’t had time to make music. The last record I did was before I did The Voice. "So if you think about it, from 2012 I haven’t put out music - not Black Eyed Peas, not solo stuff, not working with anybody else. So I’m really thinking ‘what am I going to do?’." "If I’m going to work with other singers, do I have time to do The Voice again? I need to take a deep breath, go into a quiet room, meditate on what I should be doing." Directly asked if he would be returning to The Voice, he added: "I don’t know if I’ll come back next year. I don’t know. I think I just need a plan, because I’ve been reacting – I haven’t planned. "I need to decide what the next 10 years will look like. To do that I have to be a little bit more strategic with my time and I have to have partners…if that’s the cast, is ITV a partner? "I don’t know. Because right now I’m just a hired gun.” “I need to decide if TV is my career now. And if that’s the case, then why, when the show is over, am I flying back to the States? Shouldn’t I be living here? "So although I love ITV and it’s been better on this channel… and I love this country because the people are awesome…I don’t know if I will come back."