{"id":4023,"date":"2025-06-26T06:50:50","date_gmt":"2025-06-26T06:50:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/grow24.us\/?p=4023"},"modified":"2025-06-26T06:50:50","modified_gmt":"2025-06-26T06:50:50","slug":"michael-bubles-eyes-welled-up-on-the-kelly-clarkson-show-in-may-2025-baring-his-soul-about-his-grandfather-mitch-santaga-who-traded-plumbing-jobs-for-jazz-gigs-to-fuel-a-12-year-old","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/grow24.us\/?p=4023","title":{"rendered":"Michael Bubl\u00e9\u2019s eyes welled up on The Kelly Clarkson Show in May 2025, baring his soul about his grandfather, Mitch Santaga, who traded plumbing jobs for jazz gigs to fuel a 12-year-old\u2019s dreams in Burnaby, BC. Mitch saw a star in young Michael, spinning Sinatra records and begging Vancouver bars, \u201cFeed my kid, let him sing.\u201d Through rejections and smoky lounges, his hustle carried Bubl\u00e9 to a 2001 break at 26, launching a 75M-record career. X sobbed with 1M views: \u201cMitch\u2019s love built a legend!"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The Clever Way Michael Buble\u2019s Grandpa Helped Him Get Noticed As a Young Singer<\/h1>\n

\"Today,<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\u201cThat\u2019s just one small example of the effort my grandpa made on my behalf,\u201d\u00a0The Voice<\/em>\u00a0Coach wrote in his memoir.<\/p>\n

very star gets their big break somehow, and for\u00a0Michael Bubl\u00e9, his road to becoming an applauded Grammy winner began with plenty of waterworks, But not how you might think.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Nowadays, Bubl\u00e9 is known as one of the silkiest voices in music and one of the most supportive Coaches on\u00a0The Voice<\/em>. Since joining the NBC singing competition in Season 26, Bubl\u00e9 has been charming audiences with his silly sense of humor and warm mentorship. But behind his effortless stage presence and polished persona lies a story that is anything but conventional.<\/p>\n

While some music careers begin with viral videos or lucky record deals, Bubl\u00e9\u2019s ascent was rooted in something far from the confines of a recording studio: a plumbing company. Long before he achieved global superstardom, Bubl\u00e9 was a young man with a dream and a grandfather who would go above and beyond to see his grandson soar on the big stage.<\/p>\n

Yes, you read that correctly. Bubl\u00e9\u2019s road to success began with his grandfather\u2019s expert plumbing skills and some powerful persuasion.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

The shocking role plumbing played in Michael Bubl\u00e9 becoming a star<\/h2>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\"Michael<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n

Michael Bubl\u00e9 on The Voice Season 27, Episode 13.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

During a 2024 appearance on\u00a0The Rich Eisen Show<\/em>, Bubl\u00e9 opened up about how his grandfather\u2019s plumbing company helped him gain his bearings in the music industry. Bubl\u00e9 grew up close to his grandfather, who showed his grandson jazz records and sparked his love for old-school crooners.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy grandpa was a plumber for 50 years, and I was 12, 13, and he would play his old records, and I loved them,\u201d Bubl\u00e9 reminisced. \u201cAnd I was like, \u2018I want to do that.\u2019 And so he would take me to nightclubs and bars and stuff, and take me with these musicians and say, \u2018Hey, you let my grandson up with you, I will fix your plumbing.’\u201d<\/p>\n

Bubl\u00e9\u2019s grandfather would swap repaired water heaters or tweaked pipes for his grandson to score a few songs with the headliner, leveraging whatever connections he could to help Bubl\u00e9 get his big break.<\/p>\n

\"Michael<\/p>\n

\u201cLiterally, I would get on stage and work, and then these musicians were like, \u2018Oh, the kid\u2019s not bad,’\u201d he recalled. \u201cAnd then, after years and years of that, I was playing nightclubs, and\u00a0I<\/em>\u00a0started hiring the musicians, and I didn\u2019t get my break \u2019till years later. I was about 26 or 27 when I finally got signed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bubl\u00e9 also wrote about how supportive his grandfather was in his 2011 memoir,\u00a0Onstage Offstage<\/em>. \u201cMy grandpa will sit in the studio for hours while I record, and he\u2019ll fly halfway around the world to watch me perform \u2013 even though he\u2019s in his eighties,\u201d he wrote in an excerpt published by\u00a0TODAY<\/em>. \u201cIt thrills me that I can make it happen for him because he wanted to be a singer, too: I\u2019m living our dream.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI like to tell audiences how my grandpa Mitch was a plumber who\u2019d give musicians free plumbing service if they\u2019d let me sing with them,\u201d he continued. \u201cWhile other kids were at the mall, I was in some cheesy hotel lounge singing with guys three times my age. That\u2019s just one small example of the effort my grandpa made on my behalf.\u201d<\/p>\n

Michael Bubl\u00e9\u2019s journey from the club circuit to the Coaches chair on\u00a0The Voice<\/em><\/h2>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\"Michael<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n

Michael Bubl\u00e9 on The Voice Season 27, Episode 1.<\/p>\n

Photo: Trae Patton\/NBC<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

While Bubl\u00e9 benefited from the doors opened by his grandfather\u2019s complimentary plumbing services, the \u201cHome\u201d singer didn\u2019t get his big break until the 2000s after former Canadian\u00a0Prime Minister\u00a0Brian Mulroney played a role in discovering Bubl\u00e9, as he shared in an interview with\u00a0AXS-TV. After\u00a0The Voice<\/em>\u00a0Coach performed at the wedding of Mulroney\u2019s daughter, he was introduced to Grammy Award-winning producer David Foster.<\/p>\n

\"Michael<\/p>\n

After being signed to Foster\u2019s label, Bubl\u00e9\u2019s meteoric rise was onward and upwards with the release of his self-titled 2003 album and the subsequent release of 2005\u2019s\u00a0It\u2019s Time<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was years of playing anything that you could think of, from doing singing telegrams to a cruise ship to a lot of bars, a lot of clubs. That\u2019s kind of the thing I was doing, the club circuits,\u201d Bubl\u00e9 shared on\u00a0The<\/em>\u00a0Rich Eisen Show<\/em>, recalling that he\u2019d work with his father in commercial fishing in the summers to support the circuit months. All that grueling work instilled an immense sense of gratitude for Bubl\u00e9 that he wouldn\u2019t trade for the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I got my break and when it happened for me\u2026 to this day, I can\u2019t believe I\u2019m here,\u201d Bubl\u00e9 said. \u201cI can\u2019t believe I\u2019m sitting with you. I\u2019m grateful, and I think it just made me who I am. And so when I got here, I felt like I was good to go.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Clever Way Michael Buble\u2019s Grandpa Helped Him Get Noticed As a Young Singer \u201cThat\u2019s just one small example of the effort my grandpa made on my… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4024,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/grow24.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/grow24.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/grow24.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grow24.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grow24.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4023"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/grow24.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4023\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4025,"href":"https:\/\/grow24.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4023\/revisions\/4025"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grow24.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/grow24.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grow24.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grow24.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}