10 Rumors About Blake Shelton And Gwen Stefani We Couldn't Ignore

Gwen Stefani and Blake Shelton's relationship began on the set of "The Voice," where they kept things strictly professional — at first. Then their divorces from their respective partners, Gavin Rossdale and Miranda Lambert, happened and blew up their lives, leaving the vulnerable co-coaches in need of comfort and trustworthy confidants. It was the perfect recipe for a schlocky BookTok romance, and many skeptics likely wrote the start of their love story off as nothing more than a tall tabloid tale before the unlikely pair confirmed the unthinkable: Stefani falling for Shelton was a thing that had actually happened. What followed was an avalanche of rumors about everything from a Shefani bun in the oven to the lovebirds' eating habits.

In mid-September 2015, Radar became one of the first outlets to suggest that Shelton and Stefani were rebounding from their exes with each other. A source told the webloid that the pair wasn't doing the best job hiding their attraction while shooting "The Voice," saying, "Blake and Gwen are being very flirty both on and off set." Days later, Stefani's rep insisted to Page Six that the romance chatter was "completely untrue," but that November, the odd couple became official.

The woman who gave us one of the '90's greatest heartbreak anthems and the man who gifted us with the poignant lyric "Chew tobacco, chew tobacco, chew tobacco, spit" are well aware that their coupledom is rather confounding. "It's a little weird. We could not be, on paper, any more different," Shelton said on "Today" in 2016. Their relationship was so out of left field that one of the earliest rumors about it was that it was nothing more than a fauxmance.

Gwen Stefani was working on her album "This Is What the Truth Feels Like" while falling in love with Blake Shelton, and for some of the "Hollaback Girl" singer's fans, the truth felt more like fiction. In November 2015, a Stefani source even felt the need to tell Page Six that the couple wasn't faking a relationship as a PR stunt for "The Voice."

However, the timing of the couple's relationship rollout seemed awfully convenient, with "The Voice" live shows kicking off in late 2015. It helped the tabloids spin stories about behind-the-scenes machinations to make their on-air interactions must-see TV. Radar claimed that Shelton and Stefani orchestrated an embrace for their fans' benefit, with a source saying, "They are loving this attention and are working with producers now on more ways to let their love shine on air because the audience clearly loved it!"

During the show's 12th season in 2017, Radar reported that Stefani and Shelton's canoodling was no longer happening frequently enough to satisfy their bosses. "Producers have really come down on Gwen for her flirtation. ... They basically told her that they are really just disappointed in how her and Blake seem to be lacking in the love department this season," a supposed insider said. But if an Us Weekly source is to be believed, the couple was asked to change how they treated each other for Season 17. Apparently, the new tactic was for Stefani to channel Shelton's former frenemy on the show, Adam Levine. "Expect Gwen to spar a bit with Blake," a source told the magazine in August 2019. "Executives have encouraged her to do so."

Gwen Stefani had three sons with Gavin Rossdale when she started dating Blake Shelton, but for the tabloids, the idea of the child-free "Boys 'Round Here" singer becoming a stepdad to Stefani's boys wasn't enough — they desperately wanted a Shefani baby. Mere weeks after the couple confirmed their relationship, InTouch reported that Stefani was pregnant. The cover of a December 2015 issue even proclaimed that her pregnancy cravings included Mexican cuisine.

When a baby failed to materialize, the absence of an infant just seemed to embolden the glossies. In September 2016, Life & Style claimed that Stefani was angling for a shotgun wedding. There were also rumors that she was undergoing IVF treatments and considering adoption, with Radar reporting that she had successfully used the former to get pregnant in September 2017. "Gwen is always outnumbered by men — she'd love to have a girl!" its source spilled. But the pregnancy rumors took a tragic turn a month later when InTouch reported that Stefani was no longer expecting.

Baby bump sightings galore followed that fall, but Us Weekly claimed in 2018 that Stefani and Shelton had turned to surrogacy to fulfill their wish for a larger family. "It's extremely important to Gwen that she give Blake a biological child," said an insider. By 2024, the rumblings were still going strong. "[Shelton] never got to do the baby thing, and his friends worry he's not happy," a Radar source dished. However, if Shelton was bothered by their purported failure to have a baby, he didn't show it; on a 2021 episode of "The Voice," he even joked about Stefani giving birth to twins.

One of the wackiest rumors about Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani has to be the May 2016 Radar claim that Shelton spent over a million dollars on an engagement ring — and proposed by dropping it inside a KFC container. According to the webloid, Shelton getting down on one knee and presenting his bride with a ring box that possibly also contained some crispy wings and thighs didn't fly with Stefani, who turned down the proposal.

Other outlets pushed a different narrative, with Life & Style reporting in 2017 that the couple ignored network executives' encouragement to get engaged on "The Voice" because they were having relationship issues. The on-air proposal rumor resurfaced in 2020 when a source told OK! that the couple was "feeling pressured to deliver a 'surprise' engagement" to boost ratings. But Shelton didn't storm "The Voice" stage dressed like Colonel Sanders, yank a greasy ring dusted with 11 herbs and spices out of a bucket of chicken, and tell Stefani, "It's finger lickin' good!" 

While Shelton's actual 2020 proposal at his Oklahoma home was almost ruined due to pandemic travel problems, he managed to pull it off. And on "The Kelly Clarkson Show," Stefani revealed her ring was hidden in a cabinet beside a fire starter, not in a KFC box.

While addressing the KFC proposal rumor during a 2016 Mix 104.1 interview, Gwen Stefani revealed, "I actually don't eat meat" (via International Business Times). Unfortunately, Blake Shelton is the type of carnivore who likes to kill his own protein. "The game he brings home and the fish that need gutting and cleaning gross Gwen out," a source told the National Enquirer in 2025. A year earlier, Life & Style claimed that Shelton didn't care that his bloody hobbies bothered his bride, with its insider saying, "He seems to get a kick out of rubbing it in her face, even though he knows it makes her sick to her stomach."

According to a 2017 Hollywood Life report, Shelton was even trying to turn Stefani's sons into little hunting buddies, but the "Hey Baby" hitmaker was adamantly opposed to putting guns in their hands. "Blake thinks it would do the boys good, that she's too soft on them, too protective, and that they need toughening up — but Gwen isn't budging," its source said. If there's any truth to these rumors, perhaps the couple eventually reached a compromise; in 2025, Stefani shared a video of herself catching a fish on TikTok. So while she might not be comfortable with the men in her life running around with rifles and shooting deer for fun, apparently, rods and reels are cool.

An unfortunate side effect of Blake Shelton's outdoorsy lifestyle is skin damage from sun exposure, but according to some rumors, Gwen Stefani helped him restore his barbecued hide to its former glory. According to a 2023 National Enquirer story (via Radar), the "Luxurious" singer introduced Shelton to the world of luxury beauty treatments and convinced him to try Botox. "Now that he's started doing it, he likes it and he's talking of getting more procedures done, like the facial rejuvenation that's become so popular," a source blabbed to the magazine.

In 2024, Life & Style also claimed that it had insider info about the couple's cosmetic work. If its reporting isn't just scuttlebutt, then it seems the impressive results of Stefani's rumored plastic surgery might have inspired Shelton to pursue a more youthful look himself. "Word is, Gwen got some tweaking done to her face, Botox, fillers, lasers, maybe micro-needling to tighten her neck. ... In her view, she's doing these nip/tucks to appease fans, but it also puts a sexy fire under Blake, too, to the point where he can't keep his hands off her," its source spilled. But perhaps it's actually the country singer's love, not loads of cosmetic work, that is responsible for the No Doubt frontwoman's age-defying appearance. In 2021, Stefani made an unusual claim about her looks, telling The Daily Telegraph that her beauty got a major boost after she started making out with her cowboy Casanova.

By late 2025, Gwen Stefani seemed to be inching closer to the Mar-a-Lago face look. Drum-tight skin plumped with filler has apparently become an aspirational aesthetic among the MAGA crowd, and Stefani was getting dangerously close to looking like she'd fit right in with the likes of Lara Trump, Kimberly Guilfoyle, and Kristi Noem. Her behavior also raised a few eyebrows; some fans were dismayed when she reposted a Tucker Carlson interview on X (to be fair, she seemed more interested in his interviewee, "Jesus Revolution" actor Jonathan Roumie). And when she appeared in an ad for Hallow, a prayer app Vice President JD Vance has invested in, "Selling Sunset" star Chrishell Stause quipped on Instagram, "Gwen-DON'T SPEAK. Please take your own advice on this one."

Fans expressed confusion over Stefani's politics on Reddit, with one commenter opining that she's seemed "way more conservative" since marrying Blake Shelton. She was also accused of giving her image an overhaul to better fit in his world. When it comes to her once-iconic wardrobe, there's some evidence this is true; in a bedazzled cowgirl outfit she wore during her Vegas residency, she looked like a yassified Jessie from "Toy Story."

In 2025, a Daily Mail source backed the suspicions about who was to blame for Stefani's "MAGA makeover." The insider claimed, "After massively supporting Democrats for years — she appears to have gone MAGA. Some of this can be attributed to her marriage, as Blake is an infamous Republican. She shut out everyone for him." However, some Stefani fans have argued that, underneath it all, she's always been about that tradwife kind of life.

While Gwen Stefani and Blake Shelton never shared the sordid details behind the divorces that preceded their unexpected romance, it was widely reported that both of their exes had been unfaithful. However, in 2015, some reports tried to flip the script on their nascent relationship. That November, sources in Gavin Rossdale's camp told TMZ that the Bush frontman was "suspicious" of the timeline of their love story. According to Hollywood Life, he wasn't the only one who suspected that it started much sooner than Shelton and Stefani claimed. That same month, another insider set the stage for Miranda Lambert's reputation redemption arc by telling the webloid, "She doesn't buy their story that it's totally brand new. She thinks they're just trying to cover it up so they don't look bad."

Another soap opera plotline all these anonymous informants concocted was that, despite the devastation their respective splits caused, Stefani and Shelton were finding it hard to let go of their exes. According to a December 2015 InTouch report, Stefani was heartbroken when she learned that Shelton and Lambert were still texting, a discovery she supposedly made while filming "The Voice." A source claimed, "She had tears running down her face and went and locked herself in her dressing room." But in 2018, Radar suggested that Shelton was the one who should have been seething with jealousy over his partner's ex. "She can't stand Gavin because she thinks he's a cheater and a bad dad. But she STILL insists on calling him the love of her life!" its insider spilled.

If the gossip mill is to be believed, it seems Gwen Stefani would really like for Blake Shelton to cool it with the country cookouts. One very '90s sitcom narrative the tabloids have pushed about the couple is that Shelton is a man-baby with no impulse control, and Stefani is the controlling mother figure who tries to get him to act responsibly. In 2023, Radar claimed that she had grown concerned about his weight and was making him eat his vegetables. "When they go out to eat, he can't have anything with ice cream in it. Steak is also out of the question," its source added.

By the following May, Life & Style was happy to report that Shelton had lost 20 pounds, but supposedly it took a threat he couldn't ignore to get him to stick to Stefani's diet plan. "She said no nookie until she saw improvement. It may have sounded harsh, but she had to make Blake realize she was serious!" said a snitch who had somehow obtained this knowledge about the couple's sex life. But alas, mere months later, Life & Style claimed that Shelton's love of barbecue and beer had won out, and its insider casually dropped the politically incorrect term "fat farm" when detailing his worried wife's next plan for getting him to eat healthier.

According to a July 2025 Radar report, nothing Stefani did got her husband to stop filling up on fried foods and smoked meats, so she gave up and accepted that she would just have to remain at her wits' end. "He's basically all barbecue, even in the heat," a source stated. "But Gwen's terrified he's headed for a health disaster."

Fans of "The Voice" used to love watching Adam Levine trade barbs with Blake Shelton, but the Maroon 5 frontman might've lost some cool points with Gwen Stefani after he sent some thirsty messages to an Instagram model in 2022. He'd been married to Behati Prinsloo for eight years, and this would understandably be a sore spot with Stefani, who went through something similar with Gavin Rossdale. Radar even claimed that she wanted Shelton to terminate whatever was left of his relationship with Levine. "For her it's personal. She isn't worried about Adam being a bad influence [on Blake], this is about principle," an insider explained.

Rumors of more drama between Stefani and a coach on "The Voice" surfaced in 2023 when the National Enquirer (via Radar) claimed that Stefani wasn't getting along with her husband's replacement on the show, Reba McEntire. "[Shelton] told [Stefani] he isn't going to stand for her to be anything less than polite and kind to Reba or she's going to be living in a house of discontent," a source stated to the tabloid. It is worth noting that Stefani and McEntire have only ever sung each other's praises in interviews and on social media.

Radar also claimed that Shelton's friendship with Keith Urban left Nicole Kidman feeling snubbed and saddened after her split from the "Somebody Like You" singer. Kidman was reportedly hurt when neither Shelton nor Stefani, whom she considered friends, reached out to her amid her and Urban's divorce. "Nicole feels blindsided not just by Keith but by the silence of the whole group," an insider stated.

Reports of the impending demise of Gwen Stefani and Blake Shelton's relationship were greatly premature. Life & Style predicted it was coming in 2017 and even claimed that Gavin Rossdale was acting as a relationship counselor for the pair. According to the tabloid, he intervened because he feared that his sons would have a tough time handling another major change to their family dynamic. The following year, InTouch reported that Shelton had supposedly given his Cali cowgirl the boot, with a source claiming, "Blake's through with Gwen's neediness and all the drama: her demanding, critical ex-husband and her jealousy of him and other women." 

The couple proved the skeptics wrong by making it to the altar, but after they tied the knot in 2021, Shelton and Stefani just couldn't outrun rumors that divorce was on the horizon. In 2023, Radar reported that one cause of their marriage woes was Shelton's refusal to film a reality show on his ranch. Stefani supposedly wanted to give fans more of their "Green Acres" dynamic, but a source said, "Blake is digging in his heels because he's sick of being henpecked."

The rumors didn't go anywhere in 2024, when Life & Style reported that the "Happy Anywhere" singers were apparently deeply unhappy. "Lately, they've been at odds about everything from career decisions and the parenting of her three boys to where they spend most of their time," its insider claimed. Reports of a widening rift continued dogging the couple in 2025, and it didn't help matters that Shelton was no longer making regular appearances on Stefani's Instagram page. However, that December, a source assured Us Weekly that all was well, saying they were "as strong as ever."