Just a Fool

[1] To promote Lotus and the song, Aguilera and Shelton performed "Just a Fool" on the third season of American television singing contest The Voice on November 19, 2012, and on The Ellen DeGeneres Show on December 7, 2012.

Following the release of her sixth studio album, Bionic (2010), which failed to generate impact on charts worldwide,[2] Aguilera filed for divorce from her husband Jordan Bratman, starred in the film Burlesque and recorded the accompanying soundtrack.

[3] She then became a coach on NBC's singing competition show The Voice[3] and appeared as a featured artist on Maroon 5's single "Moves Like Jagger" (2011), which spent four weeks atop the US Billboard Hot 100 chart.

[4] Following these events, Aguilera announced her plans to begin production of her seventh album, stating that she wanted high quality and "personal" songs for the record.

[6] Speaking about her new material during an interview on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno in 2012, Aguilera said that the recording process for Lotus was taking a while because "I don't like to just get songs from producers.

[12] Blake Shelton and Christina Aguilera both served as coaches on the NBC's American reality talent show The Voice and became good friends during production.

[18] According to Steve Robson–the main writer of the song–at first, "Just a Fool" was initially pitched to Pink, but later Adam Lambert recorded a version of the track.

[21] Aguilera takes the first verse singing about sitting alone in a bar late at night, "Another shot of whisky please bartender, keep it coming till I don't remember".

In a track-by-track review, Robert Copsey of Digital Spy wrote that the song "looks obligatory on paper but fortunately isn't so bad in reality [...] Truth be told, we suspect there's a good reason why this has been saved for the back-end of the album".

[26] In an extremely positive review, Glenn Gamboa of Newsday wrote that Aguilera and Shelton "empty their broken hearts in a magnificently sung breakup song".

[27] Mike Wass of Idolator called "Just a Fool" is a "gorgeous" country ballad,[28] while Jon Caramanica of The New York Times described it as a "surprisingly warm duet"[29] and Molly Lambert of Grantland named it "a monster-ballad".

[31] Sarah Godfrey of The Washington Post called it a "straightforward country-pop piece",[32] while Stephen Thomas Erlewine of Allmusic named it "a slow, bluesy closer".

[33] Christina Garibaldi of MTV News praised Shelton's "smooth" and country vocals on the "hearbreaking" ballad, which fits nicely with Aguilera's "booming" ones.

[35] Jim Farber of New York Daily News provided a mixed review, writing that "[Shelton] sings with measured resolve while [Aguilera] nearly suffocates him.

[36] Negatively, Sal Cinquemani of Slant Magazine called it "an out-of-place country-pop duet with Blake Shelton, who feels like a cheap cash-in",[37] while Annie Zaleskie for The A.V.

[44] As of April 2015, "Just a Fool" has sold over 802,000 copies in United States becoming Aguilera's tenth best selling digital single there, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

[47] On November 19, 2012, Aguilera and Shelton performed "Just a Fool" for the first time on the third season of The Voice, an American television singing competition on which she is serviced as a coach.

[9] Wearing "sharp in dark", "semi-casual" outfits,[9] the couple sang the first verse at opposite sides of the stage, and then came together onstage and shared the second one.

[9] Caila Ball from Idolator wrote, "Clumsy cross-promotions and hyperbole aside, it was a night of stellar performances, kicked off by Coaches Christina and Blake making the world debut of 'Just a Fool'".

[50] On May 7, 2013, Filipino singer Charice Pempengco also made a cover of the song on the show Kris TV with her girlfriend Alyssa Quijano.