Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani first met as coaches on The Voice in 2014, and Shelton’s initial recollection of his future wife might surprise you. The two officially met each other for the first time when Stefani arrived at the show to perform, which preceded her announcement as a coach.
“She surprised everybody with a performance of ‘Hollaback Girl,’ and then they announced that she was going to be a coach,” Shelton recalled to PEOPLE. “I remember enjoying her performance, and then after the show, we all took a group picture. It was very much an industry-type meeting, and I told people, ‘I met Gwen Stefani. That’s crazy.’” Stefani’s first season as a coach was Season 7, and Shelton said “there wasn’t even much of a friendship that first season” between the two. “The thing I remember saying about her when people would ask was, ‘Oh my God, that girl is unbelievable,’” he added. “‘She drives a minivan to work!’ I thought rock stars drove Rolls-Royces, and Gwen was driving a black minivan.”
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In 2015, after Shelton announced his divorce from Miranda Lambert and Stefani announced hers from Gavin Rossdale, Shelton and Stefani began dating and have now been together for over five years. After becoming engaged in October, the couple is now planning their wedding. “People still can’t understand how this possibly happened,” Shelton said. “Like, ‘How can she possibly want to be with this guy? It has to have been like a mix up, right?’”
That sentiment is the basis of the couple’s recent T-Mobile commercial, which aired during the Super Bowl and also stars former The Voice coach Adam Levine. The spot, which was made to look as if it took place “a few years ago,” began with Stefani and Levine video chatting on their phones as Stefani told the Maroon 5 singer what she’s looking for in a man. “I think I’m ready to start dating again,” she said. “I’m sick of L.A. guys. I want someone completely different, maybe from another country. Someone cultured and sensitive and who’s not threatened by a strong, confident woman.” Unfortunately, the two were using a “spotty network,” so Levine heard Stefani say she was looking for “someone completely country, uncultured and threatened by a strong, confident woman.” He landed on Shelton as her blind date, and the rest was history.
“It was funny, we had a blast,” the country star told Entertainment Weekly of filming the commercial. “When I read the script, I thought it was a great idea. I thought it was so funny. Because people still don’t really understand why she’s with me. And fair enough, right? So I loved being able to spin that out.”
