The Real Reason Miranda Lambert Kept Her Wedding A Secret

When you're as famous as Miranda Lambert, being in the public eye can take a toll on your relationships. Fame and celebrity has famously ruined beloved celebrity couples like Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston and Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez (aka "Bennifer"). 

Lambert, too, had an incredibly public relationship with fellow country music superstar Blake Shelton, although the pair have since divorced, which also played on in a very public way. It makes sense then that Miranda Lambert has kept her new wedding to NYPD officer Brendan McLoughlin a secret — until now.

The country singers first met in 2005 when Shelton was still married to his first wife, Kaynette Gern. They performed together in CMT's "100 Greatest Duets" concert, and Shelton told Behind The Music that sparks flew immediately. "I was a married guy, you know," he explained. "Standing up there and singing with somebody and going, 'Man, this shouldn't be happening.' Looking back on that, I was falling in love with her, right there on stage." Gern and Shelton divorced in 2006 after three years of marriage. In an interview with Us Weekly, Shelton called it "up there" with his brother's death as one of the toughest things he's been through.

Lambert and Shelton made their red carpet debut as a couple in 2007 at the CMT Music Awards, although Shelton played coy when asked about their relationship status, saying, "It depends on what day you ask" (as told to The Monitor, via E! Online). There was trouble right from the beginning, primarily caused by their long-distance relationship the first year they were together, Lambert told CMT News. 

People reported that Shelton proposed in 2010, and they tied the knot in 2011. The wedding took place at Texas' Don Strange Ranch, as the couple exclusively confirmed to Us Weekly. "I'm married to my best friend!" Lambert told the magazine. "Looking forward to a lifetime of laughter."

It seemed that right after the pair came back from the honeymoon, rumors about unhappiness in the marriage began to swirl. While the two tended to fend off the divorce rumors together via Twitter, by 2014, things were starting to crack publicly. 

In addition to rumors of both partners cheating on each other (via InTouch), it seemed that Shelton spending a lot of time in Los Angeles to film The Voice was starting to cause a strain in their relationship, according to TMZ. Ultimately, the pair divorced in 2015 amid rumors that Lambert had cheated on Shelton with country singer Chris Young, although Young denied these rumors to Entertainment Tonight. Both sides denied any cheating took place. 

At the same time that Shelton and Lambert split, Shelton's co-star on The Voice Gwen Stefani was also going through a divorce of her own. The "No Doubt" singer and Shelton began dating quickly after. 

After all of the public attention she received during her first marriage and divorce in the spotlight, Lambert decided this time she wasn't taking any chances. In her exclusive with People, she said "I was married before, and it was a huge wedding and everything was very public. So was my divorce.... I feel like I've been through enough in my life to know what I don't want, so when I know what I do want, I snatch it right up." 

Lambert secretly married McLoughin in January of this year after meeting him in November 2018. However, she only recently opened up about the details of her relationship with the NYPD officer. She says she thinks it was love at first sight, and after her last marriage, she wanted to "[make] it a point to keep it as private as [she] could for as long as [she] could."

She still hasn't revealed too many details about her nuptials, but did mention that it was also an incredibly private day — not even her fellow Pistol Annies were there. "I didn't have nobody," she said. "That was mine and his moment." In the interview, she noted that she feels bad for pulling McLoughin into the spotlight, which isn't her favorite place to be. "He just takes it like a champ," she told the magazine. "He's better at it than I am."