His sweet escape. Blake Shelton credits Gwen Stefani for getting him back on his feet following his divorce from Miranda Lambert. The country superstar opened up about his romance with the No Doubt frontwoman in a new interview with Billboard magazine.
As previously reported, Shelton told Stefani that he was splitting from Lambert during a meeting with their Voice coworkers. The “Misery” singer, who was new to the team at the time, got emotional.
“I won’t forget that day. I looked over at Gwen — who I didn’t really know — and she had these huge tears in her eyes. I thought, ‘Wow, she feels super bad for me!’” Shelton recalled. “She didn’t tell me much, because we didn’t know each other at the time, but she said, ‘I’m going through something very similar to what you’re going through. I understand. And I hate it.’”
Stefani was dealing with her own breakup at the time with Gavin Rossdale. (As Us Weekly exclusively revealed, the Bush rocker was cheating on her with their children’s nanny, Mindy Mann.) They announced they were ending their 13-year marriage in August 2015, one month after Shelton and Lambert announced they were divorcing after four years.
The “Came Here to Forget” singer and Stefani leaned on each other for support during the difficult time. The closer they got, the more Shelton saw Stefani in a new light.
“That’s kind of how our friendship and bond started, that day. It went from that, to checking in on each other once a week through email — ‘This s–t happened to me, what happened to you?’ — to maybe three times a week, then every day, to ‘Hey, here’s my phone number if you ever want to text,’” Shelton told Billboard. “Next thing I know, I wake up and she’s all I care about, and I’m wondering if she feels the same about me.”
“Gwen saved my life,” he added. “Who else on earth could understand going through a high-profile divorce from another musician? You can’t even imagine the similarities in our divorces.”
The two teamed up professionally too. Shelton included their collaborative track, “Go Ahead and Break My Heart,” on his 12th studio album, If I’m Honest.
“When we recorded the vocals for some of these songs, I was only six months removed from when all the crap went down,” Shelton said of his split from Lambert. “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.”
