Gwen Stefani Says She Had ‘a Lot to Consider’ Before Blake Shelton Engagement

Blake Shelton proposed to Gwen Stefani in October after the couple had been dating for five years, and they’re now planning to tie the knot when it’s safe to invite everyone they care about. Prior to their relationship, both stars were getting divorced — Shelton from Miranda Lambert and Stefani from Gavin Rossdale, who she shares three sons with — and Stefani explained on the Today show on Thursday that that history made her pause for a moment.

“There was a lot to consider when you have so many people involved — children and their hearts and everybody in my family’s family — we all went through a lot together,” she told Hoda Kotb and Savannah Guthrie. “And, so, I think in a romantic way, when you fall in love so hard and so unexpectedly, it’s so late in your life, and I think you can relate to this, you think, ‘I want to marry you! Like, now!’ That’s the first romantic reaction, like, ‘Let’s get married!’”

Stefani shared that she and Shelton “always talked” about marriage, “of course.” “Then as the years were going by, it was sort of like it didn’t need to happen. There was a lot of healing to do,” she said. “And so I think we just, it was just natural. It’s funny because he basically had the ring, and it was right around my birthday. I was kind of getting a little bit anxious. I was, like, ‘Wait a minute. What are we doing? I don’t need to ever get married. What is happening?’ Because I started having a little insecurity, and so it was right on time.”

The No Doubt singer had previously told Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show that she had been contemplating her relationship with Shelton shortly before he proposed. “I gotta tell you, I was sort of like, ‘What’s happening with us?’” she said. “It was kind of in my mind like, ‘We’ve been together a long time now. What’s going on?’ I was in that place in my head.”

Stefani added that the proposal itself, which took place on Shelton’s ranch in Oklahoma, was “pretty magical.” “Wasn’t expecting it at the moment that it happened at all, didn’t have any idea,” she shared, later confirming that she and her fiancé aren’t planning to marry amid the pandemic. “It’s like, ‘Blake, why couldn’t you have done it before? Now we can’t have a wedding with the pandemic,’” she joked. “Drag it out more.”