Blake Shelton's Relationship History

Long before Blake Shelton's signature snark earned him a spot squabbling with other singers on "The Voice," the future Sexiest Man Alive was just your average country boy from Oklahoma who was trying to find some upside to competing in child pageants. In 2015, Shelton explained to ET why he let his mom keep entering him in the competitions. "I was picking up chicks, man," he revealed. The talent segments also allowed him to sing onstage. But first, as Shelton so eloquently put it, "I had to do the evening wear and all that crap."

Shelton's love for the ladies sparked an early interest in songwriting. But he doesn't look back fondly on his 15-year-old self's first lyrical endeavor, which he put to paper while he was wallowing in self-pity. "I wrote a song called 'That Girl Made a Fool Out of Me,'" he recalled to Nash Country Weekly. "It was about a girl who I had a crush on in high school and who, looking back on it, honestly didn't care too much about me ... I think it's probably in the Top 10 of worst songs ever written in the history of the earth." He'd eventually start having a little more luck in the dating department. On "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon," Shelton revealed that growing his legendary mullet actually improved his love life (via HuffPost). But while it looked pretty sweet, it didn't shield the "Honey Bee" hitmaker from heartbreak.

Blake Shelton had been a married man for two years when he met former "Nashville Star" competitor Miranda Lambert. It was June 2005, and the song of the summer at the time was Gwen Stefani's solo smash "Hollaback Girl." But the tune Shelton and Lambert were asked to sing for the "CMT 100 Greatest Duets" special wasn't as fresh as a bunch of green B-A-N-A-N-A-S; it was the 1981 country classic "You're the Reason God Made Oklahoma." After the event aired, a CMT recap said of the singers, "Their sparks had some fans thinking they might be romantically linked. (Blame the power of a good duet sung very convincingly.)"

Shelton and Lambert would both later admit to feeling a spark ignite at the time. "I was a married guy, you know? Standing up there and singing with somebody and going, 'Man, this shouldn't be happening,'" Shelton confessed in the 2011 "Behind the Music: Miranda Lambert" VH1 special (via Entertainment Weekly). "Looking back on that, I was falling in love with her, right there on stage." Lambert, meanwhile, recalled in a "Dateline" interview, "It was just this draw to each other." She was, however, aware that Shelton already had a wife and tried to remind herself of that fact. "I knew better, like this is off-limits," she revealed. Still, she couldn't stay away from Shelton and told W that they tried to be platonic pals. "But our chemistry made the romantic relationship inevitable," she said.

Gwen Stefani had been a first-time mom for 10 months when Blake Shelton and Miranda Lambert made their red carpet debut at the CMT Awards in 2007. But the country singers likely weren't keeping up with the latest Stefani gossip when they settled into their new life together. They began co-writing music, including Lambert's 2009 track "Love Song," and in 2008, they hit the road together on tour. Ahead of that experiment, the couple confessed to CMT that their relationship had already hit a few bumps in the road. "There were times early on there that — I know that she did and I know that I did — we were just ready to give up on it and walk away from it," Shelton said.

But the singers stuck together. They bonded over their love of the great outdoors, with Lambert telling Field & Stream that Shelton had started taking her bow hunting in Oklahoma. And in 2010, Shelton told AP (via Houma Today), "I can see us getting married one day, maybe, where before you would never have gotten me to say something like that." The couple was rocking some of their hunting camouflage and fishing on Shelton's ranch when he popped the question that May. "Well ... Ol' Blake finally got a brain!! And ... I didn't say no!!!" Lambert tweeted. She later recalled to People, "He called my dad and got his blessing first. That was so Southern and old-school and perfect."

Life didn't slow down for Blake Shelton and Miranda Lambert after they tied the knot. Shelton had joined the cast of "The Voice," which premiered in 2011, and in addition to being busy with her own career, Lambert told Health (via CNN) that she was caring for over half a dozen rescue dogs at the time. "The dogs are really good birth control!" she quipped. But three months later, Shelton revealed that he was contemplating his future as a father. "When I see my mom and dad with their grandkids and that relationship down the road, that's what I'm looking forward to more than anything," he said, per People.

Lambert also began warming to the idea of starting a family. In fact, in an October 2011 interview with Texas Monthly, she revealed that she already had a birthing plan and a hospital in mind. "I'm jumping in the car and hauling a** to Texas," she said. "Our child is going to be born a Texan." But as time went on, the couple kept putting off having kids. In March 2012, Shelton told Us Weekly that he and Lambert had decided that they wanted to keep prioritizing their careers. "We're a couple of years away from seriously talking about [having a baby]," he said. Two years later, Lambert told Good Housekeeping that such a discussion hadn't happened yet. "I don't want to raise a child on a bus or in L.A.," she explained.

Before Gwen Stefani replaced Christina Aguilera on "The Voice" in 2014, she couldn't name one Blake Shelton song. In a 2022 NBC Insider interview, she confessed, "I didn't know that Blake even existed really in the world." Shelton's knowledge of the No Doubt singer was also limited at the time. He told ET that if her name came up in a conversation, he'd most likely say, "Is that the girl that holds the orange up in the video?" It would be a few years before Shelton learned that the fruit represented Stefani's Orange County roots.

Shelton learned that Stefani was so much more than a citrus lover after getting to know her. "Gwen's quickly becoming one of my favorite people that I've had the chance to work with on the show," he said in a September 2014 interview with Entertainment Weekly. "I think she is the most normal person I have ever met in Hollywood — outside of the fact that she says the word 'rad' a lot." He also revealed that he had introduced Stefani to Miranda Lambert, who was thrilled to get a chance to talk fashion with the style icon.

Meanwhile, Stefani's own significant other, rocker Gavin Rossdale, got to know the rest of "The Voice" cast when he served as an adviser for his wife's team. At the time, no one could have predicted that Shefani would soon become a pop culture phenomenon.

Infidelity rumors abounded in the wake of Blake Shelton and Miranda Lambert's 2015 divorce announcement. Sources told TMZ that Shelton became convinced that Lambert had cheated on him with an unnamed party, so he decided to pull the plug on their marriage. The outlet also mentioned a rumor concerning an affair between Lambert and country singer Chris Young, who soon tweeted a denial. "They are both my friends and I would not betray that friendship," he wrote.

Lambert insiders, meanwhile, told TMZ that Shelton was the unfaithful spouse and that he had cheated on her with another well-known musician. Days later, singer Cady Groves spoke to InTouch about past rumors that she had been romantically involved with Shelton. She'd been tweeting cryptically about lost love and confirmed that her messages were meant for Shelton's eyes. "I want to talk to him. If I could only be face-to-face with him, I have four questions for him. But he isn't talking to me," she said (via Hollywood Life). According to TMZ, Shelton threatened to take InTouch to court over its reporting about Groves. In its warning to the tabloid, Shelton's legal team wrote, "Mr. Shelton did not have a sexual relationship or affair of any nature whatsoever with Ms. Groves."

Neither Shelton nor Lambert ever confessed to being unfaithful. However, in a 2018 interview with Hits Daily Double, Lambert said, "I get divorced and get my heart broken. I break hearts."

The first hint that Blake Shelton's rockstar girlfriend was willing to go more than a little bit country for him came in October 2015 before they confirmed their romance. Shefani was photographed at George Clooney's Halloween party, and Gwen Stefani was clad in a cowgirl costume. As her relationship with Shelton progressed, she started regularly rocking Western wear such as cowboy boots and garments dripping with fringe. And she didn't just look the part of a country star; Shelton gave the "Hella Good" singer her first No. 1 country hit when they recorded "Nobody But You" together. 

The Anaheim native also started adapting to life on Shelton's Oklahoma ranch, where a date night could end with a big brush pile being set aflame. Shelton went out of his way to help Stefani feel at home, even buying her a horse. "Gwen, she loves riding and she loves horses," he told ET. "It's actually so funny that people are so shocked by that." When Stefani had custody of the three sons she shares with Gavin Rossdale — Kingston, Zuma, and Apollo — they would also visit the ranch. While chatting with CMT in 2018, Shelton revealed that he also found the perfect gift for the boys: their very own ATVs. "I was teaching Kingston how to drive and he took off driving like a maniac into the middle of the frozen pond," Shelton recalled (via iHeart).

Gwen Stefani got another shot at that simple kind of life that she always dreamed of when she and Blake Shelton tied the knot in July 2021. They chose to get married at a place that held a lot of happy memories for them — Shelton's Tishomingo ranch — and they asked "The Voice" host Carson Daly to do the honor of officiating the event. Stefani explained the choice on "Jimmy Kimmel Live," saying, "He's the one person that we both know so well, and we've known through the years."

Daly's closeness to the couple helped make the intimate event even more of a family affair. Those ties that bind are clearly precious to Stefani, who asked for the names of herself, her sons, and Shelton to be embroidered on her wedding veil. On Instagram, Vera Wang claimed credit for the gossamer accessory and Stefani's gown. Shelton surely had to appreciate its mullet-like, high-low silhouette, which showcased Stefani's stiletto cowboy boots.

We're guessing Stefani's mom and dad needed handkerchiefs handy when they saw their daughter's towering wedding cake, which she had ordered from Fancy Cakes by Lauren. "Our bride wanted to make a sentimental statement by recreating her parent's wedding cake," read a post on the bakery's Instagram account. And on the "Today" show, Daly said that everyone needed handkerchiefs when Shelton performed a song for his bride titled "We Can Reach the Stars" that he had penned instead of writing his vows.