On Monday’s blind auditions episode of the NBC singing competition “The Voice,” Garden City’s Ava Natalie Milone, who performs as Ava Nat, won a spot on Niall Horan’s team with a powerfully heartfelt rendition of Gracie Abrams’ “I Love You, I’m Sorry” that prompted three of the four judges to turn their chairs and vie for her.<\/p>\n
“Your voice was absolutely beautiful,” praised singer-actor Reba McEntire. “It’s like butter \u2014 it\u2019s just so smooth and clear.” When the country music legend went on to ask, “Are you into theater?,” 2024 Garden City High School graduate Milone, 18, responded, “I did take theater arts, but I love, like, singer-songwriter pop. I do also sing jazz.”<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Hip-hop icon Snoop Dogg told Milone:\u00a0“When I heard you singing, I could hear that you were young, but you were performing as if you were on Broadway. The way you walked into the lyrics, all of that is show-womanship, and you had it. A lot of people don’t get that until they get further along into their career. It would be an honor to be your coach.”<\/p>\n
Former One Direction singer Horan then said Milone had demonstrated “this ability, kind of like Gracie Abrams, Olivia Rodrigo, Taylor [Swift], where it’s like they’re reading out of a journal. That’s such a difficult thing to do, but it’s not difficult if you feel the lyric. And you clearly connected with that song. … That was very impressive.”<\/p>\n
Milone, dressed in a three-quarter burgundy gown with an asymmetrical hem, brown bolero jacket and cowboy boots, thanked the judges and said:\u00a0“I wish I could be on all of you guys\u2019 teams. But I think just based on the emotional connection to, like, lyrics,” that Horan was her choice.<\/p>\n
\u201cSnoop was saying some really kind things and I was leaning toward him first,\u201d Milone said\u00a0by phone Tuesday, \u201cbut I always kind of knew going into it that Niall would be a great match for me. Not only do I love him as a pop singer-songwriter, but I felt really seen by him. By the words he was saying, I feel like he just got me as an artist. … And in that moment I thought, \u2018He’s going to be the best coach for me to pick songs with in the future and to work with.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n
Milone \u2014 the youngest of three daughters, one deceased, of attorneys Guy and Christina Milone \u2014 chose her audition song out of admiration for Grammy Award nominee Abrams, daughter of filmmaker J.J. Abrams. \u201cGracie as an artist has been a big inspiration for me,\u201d says Milone, now a freshman at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee. \u201cShe started in her room making songs that meant a lot for her, and just kind of expressing herself through music, which is what I love to do. … So it was really cool to sing not only this amazing song, but sing a song from an artist I look up to.\u201d<\/p>\n