Gwen Stefani Is Thankful for Blake Shelton and His Successful Country Coattails

Gwen Stefani is happy to ride Blake Shelton’s coattails to earn her own taste of country success. The “Hollaback Girl” singer thanked her husband for helping her break into the country music world with their two hit duet singles, “Nobody But You” and “Happy Anywhere.” Stefani made the comments during an outdoor event where Warner Music Nashville and BMI celebrated Shelton scoring his 27th and 28th number one country hits with the two songs.

“Blake Shelton, thank you for letting me ride your coat tails all this time,” Stefani told Shelton at the Sept. 9 event before Shelton played at Bridgestone Arena, reports PEOPLE. “I truly am a fish out of water. I’m from Orange County, but I’m wearing cowboy boots for this. I am such a fan of songwriting and writers.” Stefani said she cried when Shelton asked her to sing on “Happy Anywhere” because she was so excited and felt the song described their relationship.

Shelton admitted he wasn’t sure about releasing both duets back-to-back since he wasn’t sure country radio would support the idea. After “Nobody But You” topped the charts, he had a conference call with his team about what should be his next single, and they all agreed “Happy Anywhere” could still succeed. Now, Shelton said he and Warner Music Nashville executives joked that Stefani should be on every single he releases from now on.

This year also marked the 20th anniversary of Shelton’s first number-one single, “Austin,” which was featured on his self-titled debut album. “We’re just at the beginning of this journey,” Warner Music Nashville Chairman and CEO John Esposito told PEOPLE. “I know in our pocket we have what will be his 29th No. 1 song.”

Shelton and Stefani met on The Voice and started dating in 2015. After five years of dating, they got engaged in October 2020 and married on July 3, 2021. During their wedding ceremony, Shelton played a new song called “Reach the Star” in place of traditional vows. It was a rare move for Shelton since he doesn’t write his own songs lately, even though Stefani was constantly pushing him to get back into songwriting. Shelton got some help from Craig Wiseman and had the song ready for the ceremony. During a SiriusXM interview, he revealed that he did record the song, but he has not said if he plans to release it or not.

The song was a surprise to Stefani at the wedding. “She didn’t know I was going to do that,” Shelton said in July. “And so I surprised her with the song and we actually just recorded the song here in Nashville yesterday. I don’t know what, or when we’re going to do something with it, but it’s something that I wanted to have a recording of.”