Gwen Stefani Said ‘The Voice’ Edited Footage to Look Like She Was Flirting With Blake Shelton Long Before They Were Together

Gwen Stefani perches on Blake Shelton's 'The Voice' Chair. She has her arm around his shoulders.

In 2015, both Gwen Stefani and Blake Shelton left their respective marriages. Stefani had wanted to conceal her separation from Gavin Rossdale on the set of The Voice, and felt astonished when Shelton made an announcement about his own divorce. They began a relationship that same year. According to Stefani, though, The Voice made it seem as though their romance started far earlier than it did.

Gwen Stefani said ‘The Voice’ made it seem like her relationship with Blake Shelton began early

In 2015, Shelton told his fellow judges on The Voice that he was getting a divorce. Stefani was shocked, as she was also in the process of ending her marriage. They began a relationship later that year, but Stefani said that season of The Voice made it seem that their romance began much earlier than it did.

“We were laughing our heads off when we saw the blind auditions,” she told Cosmopolitan in 2016. “I love NBC, but they for sure edited stuff to look like we were flirting.”

Gwen Stefani wears a white dress and stands in front of a curtain with Blake Shelton, who wears a black suit.Gwen Stefani and Blake Shelton | Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for The Recording Academy

She said that when the season began, she still hardly knew Shelton.

“They chose to run with that story before anything was even real,” she said. “I hardly knew him. But it was like it was in the air — happening before it happened.”

Gwen Stefani shared how it felt to learn Blake Shelton was also getting a divorce

When Shelton announced his divorce, Stefani was still trying to keep hers a secret.

“There I was with my big secret, right?” she told Harper’s Bazaar. “And that’s when Blake was like, ‘Everybody, before we go out there, I want to let everyone know that by the time this airs, I will be divorced.’”

Suddenly, she felt immense relief, as there was someone who understood what she was going through.

“[I felt] exposed somehow, you know?” she said. “But it was like being handed this gift of a friend who was going through the exact same thing at the exact same time.”

She said that “everything flipped” when she learned about his divorce. Suddenly, she felt hopeful about the future.

She shared what it was like to write a song with him

In 2016, Shelton and Stefani began working on the song “Go Ahead and Break My Heart” together.

“We were both having trust issues, as you would if you were us,” she said. “It was like, I have so many problems. How can I now be getting into another potentially huge problem? What am I doing? Blake wrote the song and sent it to me. He was like, ‘Help me finish it.’”

She shared how she felt when they finished the song.

“I wrote a verse and sent it to him, but he was gone because he doesn’t live in L.A. He didn’t have Wi-Fi, so he wasn’t answering me back!” she said. “As soon as he came back to town, he brought his guitar over. We were like, ‘We wrote a song together! This is crazy!’”