Gwen Stefani ‘Didn’t See Any of This Coming’ With Husband Blake Shelton

Gwen Stefani and Blake Shelton have a musical love story for the ages, but the No Doubt singer says she “didn’t see any of this coming.” In a recent conversation with PEOPLE, Stefani shared that she never expected to fall in love with her country music hubby, who also used to be one of her fellow coaches on The Voice. “I didn’t see any of this coming with Blake,” Stefani confessed. “This was just a big old ‘What?’”

“It was an amazing gift to experience love like that for the first time,” Stefani continued. “He’s changed my life … when I [started dating] Blake, that’s when I felt home, like, ‘Oh, this is where I’m supposed to be, with this guy.” She later joked about moving to the midwest with him, “I am not really a dirt person, a bug person, I don’t like that much humidity. But it’s so beautiful [in Oklahoma], and you kind of feel like you’re going into this vortex. Nature — and God — is all right there.”

Shelton and Stefani met while working on The Voice together. They later began dating and eventually married in 2021. While the pair does not share any biological children, Stefani shares three sons — Kingston, 17, Zuma, 15, and Apollo, 9 — with ex-husband, Bush frontman Gavin Rossdale.

Notably, in 2022, Shelton opened up about his relationship with Stefani, and the country music superstar gushed over being a stepfather to her sons. People reports that Shelton gave a wide-ranging interview during the Country Radio Seminar in Nashville and amid the conversation about his career and personal life, the singer pointed out that Stefani’s children initially indicated that they were not sure the relationship would last.

 “I think Gwen thought, when we first started seeing each other, that it was just gonna be a moment in time because of that,” Shelton said, referring to the boys’ skepticism. However, Shelton was committed to making the boys a priority, as he had the benefit of seeing his own father be a loving stepfather to his older brother. “He took Richie on and raised him from the time he was 1 year old, and my brother never thought of my dad as anything other than his dad,” Shelton said. Sadly, Richie died in a car accident in 1990 at the age of 24. “The example that my dad set for me was that [child] was not even a consideration [in a romantic partnership].”

Shelton went on to recall his response to Stefani. “You got three boys? Awesome! My dad did it. My dad raised me. I could do this,” he said. “I didn’t know what I was signing up for, but I was all about signing up for it. And every day I’ve fallen in love with the boys as much as I do with Gwen.”