It wasn’t love at first sight for Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani.
Shelton and Stefani first met when she signed on to coach Season 7 of The Voice in 2014. She was married to Gavin Rossdale at the time, and they had just welcomed their third son, Apollo, in February of that year.
Shelton was also married at the time, to fellow country music star Miranda Lambert.
When Stefani returned to The Voice for Season 9 in 2015, both she and Shelton had split from their respective spouses. The two bonded over their shared heartache, and went public with their relationship later that year. They married on July 3, 2021.
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In an interview on CMT’s Hot 20 Countdown, Shelton explained why he and Stefani didn’t connect when they first met in 2014…and he doesn’t mean on a romantic level. They didn’t have time to get to know each other at all.
“The season that I met Gwen, I really didn’t even get to talk to her that much,” he said. “She’d just had a baby, and as soon as we’d cut or whatever, she would be gone out with her baby.”
Shelton said no one on The Voice talked to Stefani much during Season 7 since she was so busy. “None of us really got a chance to talk to her that much. Just some hellos here or there.”
Things were different when Stefani came back on The Voice the following year. Apollo was older and she (and Shelton) were newly single.
“She was chasing me down,” Shelton joked about how Stefani interacted with him after they reunited.
The couple has since coached many more seasons of The Voice together. Watch one of their sweetest Voice moments below.