You can’t be the flavor of the month every month.
And so Gwen Stefani and Blake Shelton—who started dating in such public fashion and seemed so in love, so fast in 2015 that jaded skeptics assumed it was mostly for show—toned it down.
Then, reader, six years later they got married and lived happily every after.
Not that everything unfolded so easily for the king and queen of this very un-tragic kingdom.
“There was a point where I was like, ‘I can’t even talk to you. This is insane. I already have enough problems. This is not happening anymore. We’re not going to text or nothing,'” Stefani told Peoplein November 2024 of the unexpected bond she former with her fellow coach on The Voice, hot on the heels of the implosion of her marriage to Gavin Rossdale.
Not to mention Shelton was also in the middle of divorcing Miranda Lambert.
“We had just met, and it was chaos,” Stefani, 55, continued. “Both of our lives were in complete turmoil, all over the ground. Nothing could save us at that point.”
So this whole don’t-speak period was short, to say the least. And soon enough, Stefani concluded that meeting Shelton “felt like a second chance at life,” as she put it to The Guardian last year.
Because, the mom of three sons with Rossdale explained, “when my family fell apart, it was a catastrophe. How do you pick yourself up from that? But God put this other person there to love me.”
Divine intervention only goes so far, though, and both Stefani and Shelton have had to conquer some demons along the way.
“I had been going through those times where you’re questioning: ‘Oh my gosh, am I just getting older? Am I cute?’” Stefani told NYLON in February 2024 of the motivation behind her song “Purple Irises.” “In my own relationship, even though I know the truth of what’s happening today, you still create drama in your own mind about your insecurities and what might happen. I was in that phase of the relationship with Blake and getting paranoid.”
Added Shelton, “It’s an insecurity we both have. These are conversations that she and I have with each other: ‘Are you still going to love me when I’m old or if I forget who I am?’”
So “Purple Irises” is hopeful and romantic for a reason: “The truth is I am in love with my best friend,” Stefani said, “and all this s–t I’m thinking of in my brain, that’s all it is—I’m overthinking.”
And speaking of overthinking…
Once the couple, who split their time between Los Angeles and his native Oklahoma, weren’t on The Voice together anymore, a lot of rumors about trouble in paradise cropped up to fill the void.
“When you’re in love and have truly aligned values, nobody can get to us,” Stefani said. “You can say whatever you want to say about our relationship—I mean, a week ago we were getting divorced again or something. It’s just lies. The truth is the truth, and we know what that is…”
Long story short, having retired into It-couple emeritus status, they’ve come a long way from the days of people following their every move and logging every glance.
They’ve hardly been hiding, the pair attending the NBC’s Opry 100: A Live Celebration in March and recording performances for the 2025 American Music Awards in May.
But looking back to how public they were when they first got together in 2015, they were more akin to a couple of giddy teenagers in love.
And their level of seriousness felt that much more surprising since their relationship came so soon after the end of Stefani’s 13-year marriage to Rossdale and Shelton’s split from Lambert after four years. But for awhile they were so out there it almost felt staged. And when it became obvious they were the real deal, then the grievance was that they were a tad too ubiquitous.
Not that a little oversaturation meant fans wanted them to break up.
Shelton’s Doing It to Country Songs Tour took up the first half of 2017 when they weren’t busy with The Voice, and then Stefani didn’t do the NBC competition’s 13th season, reminding people that they did, indeed, still have full lives apart from each other.
Nor were they in a rush to get engaged or have babies, or whatever else they were rumored to be in a rush to do. So then the split rumors followed.
In October 2017, fellow The Voice judge Adam Levine indicated they were still going strong, telling Howard Stern that Shelton and Stefani were not only the real deal but positively nauseating in private.
“They’re so in love it’s disgusting,” Levine cracked. “It’s so funny. They found each other at really interesting times in their lives. It’s really beautiful.”
“Because it’s in the public eye, a lot of people want to have their own bulls–t opinions about it, but I’m, like, there,” the Maroon 5 singer acknowledged. “I see it every day. I have a pretty unique perspective on it, and it’s real, man.” That being said, “I’m so affectionate and gross with my wife—[but] this is a whole other level of…vomit.”
The (media) break also allowed for a little bit of mystery to develop—Where are they? How are they doing? Is everything OK?!—until it was time to get back out there for some publicity, Stefani promoting her Christmas special and Shelton once again gearing up for The Voice (which he left in 2023 after 23 consecutive seasons).
And, NBD, Shelton—who’s celebrating his 49th birthday June 18—was named People‘s Sexiest Man Alive in November 2018.
“I feel bad for her,” Shelton joked on Ellen about his then-girlfriend Stefani. “She has been in the spotlight as the symbol of beauty and now this…It’s going to be humbling for her, but I think she’s got a big enough heart that she can do it. Beauty comes from within.”
Stefani gave People‘s pick an enthusiastic endorsement, and says she was the one who encouraged him to accept the honor.
“For me, it’s just that big ol’ heart and that sense of humor,” she gushed to Ellen DeGeneres. “He doesn’t even take himself seriously and he’s just such an incredible person. And that’s sexy to me.”
Not to mention, she told E! News, “How rad is my life right now? Like, how good does that make me look?!”
Meanwhile, Stefani was gradually getting used to Shelton’s more rural comfort zone.
“You’ve turned into a proper farm girl now, you really have,” Chelsea Handler teased the No Doubt frontwoman when the singer appeared on the comedian’s Netflix show in 2017.
“My nature growing up was Orange County, the beach, that was our nature,” the SoCal native mused. “That was it, you know. And that was beautiful, incredible. But to be able to experience middle of America and the gorgeous Oklahoma—it is very beautiful there…I actually wrote a Christmas song while I was there.”
“What a coincidence,” Handler cracked.
Stefani continued, “I love going there because I feel like it’s so… I get to do nothing, and I never get that here in L.A.” Asked if she experienced culture shock the first time she visited the Sooner State, she quipped, “Blake is a culture shock.”
But she does not mind that sweet escape feeling of being off the grid with him.
Read on for the sweetest things Shelton and Stefani have said about each other through the years:
Let the Rumors Begin
“I think he’s hot, don’t you? But to be super honest, it is kind of crazy we both went through the same thing at the same time. There’s been so many people that I’ve gotten so much comfort from. Just people coming to me and telling me their story. Not confiding, but sharing, which has just helped me see things from a different perspective and move forward.” —Gwen to Ryan Seacrest in November 2015
Look of Love
“How can I not be [in love]? She is the greatest. She is the greatest.” —Blake on Today in March 2018.
“Saved My Life”
“When you have a broken heart—at least, when I do—you got to get it out of your system. You want people to sympathize with you. I was at rock bottom, in the middle of hell…Gwen saved my life. Who else on earth could understand going through a high-profile divorce from another musician?” —Blake to Billboard in July 2016
Country Livin’
“I grew up in Orange County, so I don’t know if you’ve been down there, but it’s nothing like the middle of America and our nature was the beach. So to be able to be in Oklahoma and be able to experience a ranch kind of vibe is just something I never ever had, so it’s just been really, it’s been great, amazing.” —Gwen on Jimmy Kimmel Live in August 2020
Wedding Bells
“You know, what? I love weddings. The kids love him. We love him. Everybody loves him. He is lovable! I think about it all the time.” —Gwen to Ellen DeGeneres when discussing marrying Blake
Fierce Fashion
“[My style is] more feminine than ever before. It’s probably because I’m super in love and have a really manly man. I enjoy letting that part of me come out now because when I was in No Doubt, I never thought of myself as sexy. Even in my 30s, I was a tomboy. I hardly ever carried a purse.” —Gwen to InStyle in July 2018
Sexiest Man Alive
“He doesn’t even like to do a photo shoot. You can never convince him to do it. So he just called me like, ‘They want me to do this.’ And I was like, ‘You should totally do it! You’re so sexy!'” —Gwen’s reaction to Blake being named People‘s Sexiest Man Alive
Hot Commodity
“He’s so good at the show, I mean, he’s just so magical. Blake is literally a unicorn. Like anywhere he goes, people are just attracted to him, and he’s such an incredible talent.” —Gwen on SiriusXM’s Andy Cohen Live in September 2019
Biggest Fans
“Setting here watching @gwenstefani rehearsals it continues to shock me the amount of GIANT hits this girl has written… I highly recommend y’all catch her Vegas show if you can get tickets!!!” —Blake on Twitter in June 2018
A Hand to Hold
“I think she’s kept me from going to the absolute bottom. It was like literally falling off a cliff and a hand reached out and caught me, is what it feels like. I’ve never had that with somebody where it just felt like no matter what, she has my back. It’s the greatest feeling.” — Blake on Good Dish in March 2022
Unexpected Miracles
“Something that I wanted since I was a little girl is to be married and have this love that I saw my parents have and have babies. That dream was completely ruined; it was crushed, and I had to figure out how I was going to move forward and make a new dream. And God putting Blake in my life was just that miracle.” — Gwen to People in November 2024
“A Second Chance at Life”
“Meeting my husband felt like a second chance at life. Because when my family fell apart, it felt like a catastrophe. How do you pick yourself up from that? But God put this other person there to love me.” — Gwen to The Guardian in November 2024
(Originally published March 1, 2018, at 6 a.m. PT)
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