Sophia Hoffman, 18, walked away from Season 23 of “The Voice” after no chairs turned for her, but it did not stop this ambitious artist from trying again for Season 24. A native Chula Vistan, Hoffman, attends CSU Chico, and is a graduate of Olympian High School. Aired on Monday, Sept. 25, Hoffman hit the stage again on Season 24 with Demi Lovato’s “Tell Me You Love Me.” This time she got a two-chair turn from judges Niall Horan and Reba McEntire.
Although in the end, Hoffman chose Team Niall, the first to turn was McEntire, the “Queen of Country,” who said she loved Hoffman’s voice.
“You have such power and strength in it,” she said, adding with her long career in the music business, Broadway, and television, she would “love to share” her experience with Hoffman.
Hoffman said that when the infamous country star turned her chair first, she was least expecting McEntire to turn her chair for her. All she could think was, “just keep singing, just keep singing. I can trip about this later.”
Niall Horan said her voice was unbelievable for 18 and loved her soul and grit.
“I could definitely hear that J.Hud (Jennifer Hudson) grit” in there,” he told Hoffman.
This season, she said the judge choice was so difficult, and was very close to choosing McEntire, but she knew she wanted to be on Team Niall.
“But it shocked me because she is a country artist,” she said. “It shocked me that she could pick something from my voice and knows that she could help me with. That was very exciting for me. I boosted my confidence knowing that a star like her, a queen like her, would hear something special about my voice and be the first to turn around. I picked Niall because I knew he saw something in me from the beginning. It was something I also liked that he could hear the Jennifer Hudson side of my voice, that grit. I also picked Niall because of the age range. I think he could help me with the audience, going into the avenue of the people that I want to reach. Niall started on a show like ‘The Voice’ so with his expertise on how a show like this works, we could capitalize off it because it is honestly something that I am doing right now.”
Hoffman said she chose the Demi Lovato cover because on a road trip to Utah, while she was sending in her audition submission to the show, she heard “Tell Me You Love Me.”
“I cannot describe what it did to me,” she said. “It was something in my heart. I need to learn this song. I learned it in two days and spontaneously switched my song, and that was the first callback that I got from ‘The Voice.’”
Hoffman said she also performed it because of Lovato’s voice range.
“She has a big voice, and she knows how to control it so well,” she said. “I knew that going with any of her songs on the show would do me justice, because it does show my range also. I also love Demi and her story and have been a fan of her since her Disney days. I have been following her journey and what she has gone through, and I resonate with some of those things. Her confidence. Doing good in school. She never gave up. She impacted my life with her music, and it was an honor to be able to sing one of her songs.”
Hoffman said now, she is happy to be on Team Niall, as she has been in production.
“So far, it has been one of the most life changing experiences that I have ever been through,” she said. “I am 19 now, and I have made this amazing life through the show. The experience is something I would never take back, even getting the no chair turn. I think that is something that I needed in order to understand how much I really want this. I needed that to show how much I can myself what I am capable of, and I can fight through things and still show up for myself, and my dreams with what I have been through.”
Hoffman said she has met some “cool and amazing” people, made lifelong friends, being on the show.
“My life changed when I got to get up and sing in front of America,” she said. “This experience has taught me something about myself as a human, and an adult. I think of it as a boot camp of who do I want to be when I am older. This experience, being onstage, backstage, with the crew, has taught me about professionalism on a completely different level. I love to sing. I love being on the stage. I love acting. I love all these things. I love performing. I love doing something I love to do. ‘The Voice’ is my college and life is my teacher.”
Hoffman said the experience has already shown her some things she wants to do in her future.
“I know I want to keep singing and I do not want to stop,” she said. “I want to make music and put out songs. I have been trying to figure out who to reach out to. Who to connect with. I am honestly interested in creating songs, but I would also like to do films, movies, TV shows, because I love production and what it is. I did theater and have always had a love for it.”
Hoffman said she began singing around 7 years old.
“I know that I am making my younger me very proud,” she said.
