Until pop superstar Gwen Stefani met Blake Shelton in 2014, she “didn’t know that Blake even existed,” she confessed to NBC Insider. But fast forward one year, and No Doubt‘s lead singer was falling hard for the country crooner as they coached singers on NBC’s The Voice. But one of their co-stars, longtime host Carson Daly, used his voice to urge them not to date.
When Stefani and Shelton met on the show, each of their marriages was quietly unraveling. By the summer of 2015, both announced they’d split from their spouses. Shelton and fellow country star Miranda Lambert confirmed that July they’d separated after four years of marriage, while Stefani and Bush rocker Gavin Rossdale announced two weeks later that they were divorcing after 13 years of marriage and would co-parent their three boys.
After Stefani and Shelton ended their marriages, cast and crew members on The Voice began noticing a spark developing between them, Daly dished during the show’s 30th anniversary special that aired on September 17.
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“There was rumors that you two were, like, getting together,” he laughed. In fact, he recalled going to coach Adam Levine‘s dressing room to see if he knew anything. The Maroon 5 frontman said, “I was so pumped on it. I was like, ‘This is going down, dude.’ Of course I knew!”
Days after Stefani and Shelton were photographed getting cozy at Levine’s 2015 Halloween party, Stefani’s rep confirmed that the duo had begun dating. But Daly fully admitted during the September 17 special that he had “tried everything in my power to not let this thing happen.”
“You did try to get us to pump the brakes,” Shelton smirked, and Daly replied, “You both went through a crazy divorce, publicly. We went to Gwen’s house once, and I’ve known you for a long time and I love you, and I was like, ‘You guys gotta stop this. This’ll never work.”
“And then cut to years later,” Daly laughed, recalling how Shelton called him in New York, asking if he’d officiate their wedding.
Gwen Stefani Says Carson Daly Did a ‘Beautiful’ Job Officiating Her 2021 Wedding to Blake Shelton
The unlikely couple married in July 2021, hosting a wedding on Shelton’s farm in Tishomingo, Oklahoma. There were still lots of concerns about COVID at the time, so they planned a small, intimate, outdoor wedding.
The next year, when Stefani was asked on Jimmy Kimmel Live! why she and her new husband had Daly officiate their wedding, she told Kimmel, “I just had the idea of Carson because he’s the one person that we both know so well, and we’ve known through the years.”
Noting that Daly considered becoming a priest early in his life, she continued, “I was nervous to ask him — it’s a really big thing to ask someone. … We called him and immediately he was just like, ‘Let’s go!’ He was just so into it. So it was a big relief, he took it super seriously. It was really beautiful, perfect and amazing.”
Now married five years and still going strong, Stefani said on the 30th anniversary special that being on The Voice turned her life around in the wildest way.
“‘The Voice’ came at the most insane time of my life, probably one of the worst times of my life,” Stefani admitted. “And then it turned into one of the greatest things. ‘The Voice’ is the reason that I met Blake Shelton and my life completely changed.”