Adam Levine says former Voice co-judge Blake Shelton once pranked him into buying a $5,000 ‘teacup pig’

The not-so-little pet actually grew up to be around “400 pounds”: “He’s like, ‘You’re an idiot! There’s no such thing as f—ing teacup pigs, you dumbass!’”

Adam Levine on ‘The Voice’; a micro pig; Blake Shelton at the 2025 American Music Awards in Las Vegas.Credit: Griffin Nagel/NBC; Getty; Christopher Polk/Penske Media via Getty

Adam Levine wasn’t squealing with laughter over a certain prank his former Voice co-judge Blake Shelton once pulled on him.

The Maroon 5 singer has revealed that Shelton tricked him into forking over $5,000 to secure a not-so-little miniature pig for his partner, Behati Prinsloo.

“My now-wife, then-brand-new girlfriend, she said she really wanted a teacup pig,” Levine explained to Sean Evans on the most recent episode of Hot Ones. “And I didn’t know what that was, but of course the first person I would ask [would be Shelton]… So I asked Blake. I’m like, ‘What’s a teacup pig?’ He’s like, ‘I’ll get you a teacup pig. Yeah, give me five grand.’”

Behati Prinsloo and Adam Levine at the 2024 Breakthrough Prize Ceremony at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles in April 2024.Taylor Hill/Getty

But he and Prinsloo just weren’t cut out to be pig parents and ended up keeping the screaming, squealing creature for only about three weeks before rehoming it.

“We had to give it to a little girl on a farm,” Levine said. “We’re like, ‘Send us pictures! We can’t wait to not be responsible for this animal anymore! Just show us pictures!’”

He continued, “She sends us a picture like six months later and the pig is like 400 pounds. I’m like, ‘Dude, what if this animal had grown to be this big in my house?!’”

He then confronted Shelton over the size of the alleged “teacup pig,” calling out the country singer’s big fat mistake. “I’m just like, ‘Blake, bro, $5,000 for a pig that wasn’t a micro pig?’” Levine recalled. “And he’s like, ‘You’re an idiot! There’s no such thing as f—ing teacup pigs, you dumbass!’ So that was a pretty good prank that he played on me.”

To make matters worse, Levine revealed that Shelton refused to give him back the money he paid to get the pig: “He’s like, ‘No!’”

Shelton, who owns a ranch outside of his music and television endeavors, isn’t wrong. Teacup pigs are actually just potbellied pigs that are either underfed or falsely advertised as tiny to trick prospective owners into buying them, per PETA. The cute critters do not stay nearly as small as one would expect given their nickname — they can grow up to be well over 100 pounds.

Levine and Shelton starred on more than 16 seasons of The Voice together before the Maroon 5 vocalist’s departure from the reality singing competition series in 2019. Levine later returned as a judge for the show’s 27th season, which aired earlier this year.

Shelton, on the other hand, left The Voice after season 23 in 2023. The “Some Beach” singer now serves as a producer on CBS’ upcoming country music competition series, The Road, alongside Yellowstone creator Taylor Sheridan, which premieres this fall.

Watch Levine discuss Shelton’s pig prank in the clip above.