Blake Shelton on ‘The Voice’: ‘It Changed Everything For Me’

Blake Shelton was already an established country singer, with a string of hits, when NBC invited him to be on a new reality TV talent show, The Voice, in 2011. The show unexpectedly took him from a music star to a household name.

“I didn’t realize that most people in this country had never, ever heard of me, at all, or heard my music,” Shelton reveals on Sunday TODAY. “And it wasn’t until I got on The Voice as a coach that I realized, ‘Man, I am nobody.’ I remember the first time or two they introduced us on the stage. … The Voice changed everything for me, and I mean everything.”

It was while on The Voice that Shelton went through a highly-publicized divorce, with Miranda Lambert, and began dating his fellow coach, Gwen Stefani, who was in the middle of a divorce with her own musician husband, Gavin Rossdale. Although they found support in commiserating with each other, the Oklahoma native admits neither of them truly expected the romance to lat.

“If Gwen and I were being honest right now,” says Shelton, “talking about this, I think in the back of our minds we both kind of thought, ‘This is a rebound deal because we’re both coming out of a pretty low spot in our lives and we’re kind of clinging to each other to get through this.’”

Shelton and Stefani might not have expected their romance to last so long, but it has, and keeps getting better.

“Now here we are, going on three years later and every day that goes by it just feels like a stronger bond between the two of us,” Shelton says. “It constantly feels like it’s going to the next level.”

One unexpected perk of dating Stefani is the chance to spend time with her three sons: Kingston, Zuma and Appollo.

“I never saw that coming, but it’s so fun,” Shelton reveals on the Today show. “At this point in my life, I kind of had put [having kids] as like, ‘Well, I guess that wasn’t meant to be.’ Then all of a sudden it happens one way or another and it’s like, ‘Wow, [I] missed out on a lot.’ And so having them around – I don’t even know how to describe it. It’s so much fun.”

Shelton will return for Season 15 of The Voice this fall. He is spending much of the summer performing at fairs and festivals. Find details at BlakeShelton.com.

Photo Credit: Getty images/Amanda Edwards