Blake Shelton Felt It Was a Mistake to Ask Gwen Stefani to Perform With Him at a Show
Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani aren’t opposed to performing together. At one point, Stefani even quipped that she was the only singer her husband was allowed to do a duet with. But there was one joint performance that Shelton once regretted doing with his wife.
Blake Shelton felt Gwen Stefani made him look ‘terrible’ during this performance
Shelton might’ve felt upstaged by his wife during one of his shows. In 2016, he performed his hits alongside other Country music stars for the Country Jam 16 event. The event was held in Colorado, and featured other headliners like Brad Paisley and Zac Brown Band to name a few. It was a particularly special occasion for Shelton, as the singer was also turning 40 back then.
His girlfriend at the time Stefani wasn’t advertised at all for the event, and came on stage as a nice surprise. But soon Shelton realized he might’ve made a mistake, because Stefani only ended up stealing the show.
“I’m doing my normal, you know, what I think is rockin’. Standing up there with my acoustic guitar in front of my stand and singing my songs,” Shelton once told Chelsea (via Taste of Country). “I had my band work up one of her songs, ‘Hella Good.’ And I thought ‘Man, that’d be so cool to have her come out and surprise.’ It’s the worst thing I could have done because all it did was make me look terrible.”
According to the publication, Shelton and Stefani first performed the song “Go Ahead and Break My Heart” together. Stefani would then take center stage and sing one of her No Doubt songs “Hella Good.” Shelton seemed completely shocked by the crowd reaction.
“Literally 40,000 were jumping up and down,” he said. “I mean, that’s probably what it’s like at real concerts, but I was like ‘Whoa. What’s going on?’ People were so excited to see her.”
Gwen Stefani and Blake Shelton wrote this hit song through text
Stefani and Shelton are no strangers to collaborating. Stefani confided that the pair started working together on songs not too long after becoming friends.
The song they created was the same one they performed together at Country Jam 16. “Go Ahead and Break My Heart” was inspired by both of their break-ups. Shelton split with longtime partner Miranda Lambert before dating Stefani. Meanwhile, Stefani was reeling from heartbreak after her divorce from ex-husband Gavin Rossdale.
“We wrote a song together probably the first month we started talking or hanging out,” Stefani told Variety not too long ago. “It was when we were like, ‘This is not gonna happen. What are we doing? We’re insane. We’re both broken. We’ve got to figure our lives out.’ He wrote this verse and sent it to me: ‘Help me finish this song.’ I wrote a verse and sent it back to him. We were just basically texting at that point. We wrote this song, and I went in and sang on it.”
Blake Shelton showed Gwen Stefani how to sing about topics other than heartbreak
Thanks to past relationships like her marriage with Rossdale, Stefani had gotten used to writing about heartbreak in her music. But she found a healthier and more stable relationship with her current partner Shelton. This stability would help further inspire her music, and steer it in another direction.
“One thing in my life that is not like a money thing that makes my life rich, very, very rich, is obviously the most important thing, love. And I know that sounds cliche, but I spent my whole life trying to find true love and I have it right now and it’s just been the most incredible thing. And I spent most of my life writing about heartache and now I’m writing about my love. It’s an amazing thing,” she told Glamour.
