Gwen Stefani is celebrating returning to The Voice with a series of throwback photos shared in her Instagram Stories. The singer, and girlfriend of Blake Shelton, recently announced she was returning to the show, where she served as a coach for three seasons, after Adam Levine announced he was leaving.
“Never would believe I would be on set on Universal lot,” Stefani captioned the first photo.
Videos by PopCulture.com
She followed that photo by another throwback one, saying, “This Gwen did know she would get to be on tv! @nbcthevoice.”
Stefani also shared a photo of her back on the set of The Voice, where they have just begun filming for Season 17.
“Back at @nbcthevoice today!,” Stefani posted. “So many amazing memories in this trailer. Life-changing. So grateful to be back. So excited.”
Stefani was on The Voice in Seasons 7, 9 and 12. It was the ninth season, in 2015, when Stefani and Shelton, both going through their own painful divorces, bonded over their shared sadness, sparking their own romance that is still going strong.
“If Gwen and I were being honest right now,” Shelton previously said on Sunday TODAY, “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.’”
Stefani is grateful for a chance to return to the reality TV talent show, although she admits it hasn’t fully sunk in.
“It was such a shock,” Stefani said while appearing on The Talk. “I wanted to come back so bad. I mean, the show is so fun. And, Adam’s actually the first person to reach out to me when they were trying to pitch me the show. He texted me out of nowhere, and I didn’t even really know him.”
“To think that he’s not gong to be there is bittersweet. And plus, being between him and Blake, the amount of laughter, I would have to stop and massage my face, because it would hurt,” she continued. “But it’s going to be fun, it’s going to be exciting. I mean, Blake’s my best friend, so I get to hang out with him at work.”
Perhaps surprisingly, Shelton had nothing to do with Stefani returning to The Voice, even though he tried.
“By the time I found out what was going on, which was only about 12 hours before the announcement, they had already reached out to Gwen’s camp and said, ‘Look, Adam’s decided he’s gonna move on. We’re ready for Gwen if she’s in,’” Shelton told Entertainment Tonight. “I’m trying to get in the middle of this.
“Literally, I got on the phone with one of the NBC executives, and I was saying, ‘Hey man, if Adam’s gonna do this, we have got to –’” he continued, “and before I could even finish my sentence, she said, ‘Blake, it’s done. What are you doing?’ And I went, ‘Oh, OK. Perfect.’”
Season 17 of The Voice is scheduled to premiereon Sept. 23 on NBC.
Photo Credit: Getty / NBC
