When Blake Shelton started filming the ninth season of The Voice, he announced to his fellow coaches, including Gwen Stefani, that he was getting a divorce. At this point, Stefani and Shelton knew each other from the show’s seventh season. They were not close by any means, though. Because of this, Shelton found Stefani’s reaction to his announcement surprising.

Blake Shelton said Gwen Stefani’s reaction to his divorce surprised him

According to Shelton, his relationship with Stefani during the seventh season of The Voice was cordial but distant.

“[I] never really got to know her, other than small talk,” he told Billboard in 2016.

Gwen Stefani and Blake Shelton | Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for The Recording Academy

Stefani stepped away from the show for season eight but was back for season nine. They still weren’t close, so Stefani’s emotional reaction to his divorce announcement surprised Shelton.

“I won’t forget that day,” he said. “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 was unaware at the time, but Stefani was also going through a divorce from husband Gavin Rossdale.

She shared why she wanted to talk to him one-on-one

Not long after his announcement, Stefani requested to speak to Shelton privately. While she didn’t go into much detail, she disclosed that she understood exactly what he was going through.

“It was during that time, he came up to my chair … I never saw him look so upset,” she said, per People. “So then I was like, ‘I gotta talk to you.’”

Shelton said he didn’t expect Stefani to become such an important person in his life. Before long, though, they were talking every day.

“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*** 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,’” he said. “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 Stefani said Blake Shelton came into her life at the right time

Stefani said she will always be grateful that Shelton came into her life when he did.

“Meeting my husband felt like a second chance at life, because when my family fell apart it was a catastrophe,” she told The Guardian in 2024. “How do you pick yourself up from that? But God put this other person there to love me.”

Gwen Stefani and Blake Shelton | Trae Patton/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images

She said that she wrote her latest album, Bouquet, thinking about him. The couple has grown closer through their love of gardening.

“I know this sounds weird, but Blake and I came together in gardening,” she said. “We have a house together in Oklahoma and during the pandemic we came across this very old building on the land and there were some purple irises, which someone must have planted centuries ago, but they’ve survived. I wrote the song ‘Purple Irises’ about that and how it feels to find true love and the insecurities of not wanting to lose it.”