Gwen Stefani Once Said ‘Nobody Would Believe’ What Really Happened in Her Divorce From Gavin Rossdale
In 2016, Gwen Stefani’s marriage to Gavin Rossdale ended in divorce. The couple married in 2002 and share three children together. According to Stefani, the split was incredibly painful and embarrassing for her. She initially tried to keep many of the details a secret, and she said people wouldn’t believe it if they heard what really happened.
Gwen Stefani once said the details of her divorce were hard to believe
When Stefani and Rossdale separated, she spent time and effort trying to keep the details of their split private. She said she hardly told anyone what had happened between the couple.
“Nobody [knows the specifics of the divorce] except for my parents, the people involved, and whoever they told,” she told Cosmopolitan in 2016. “Nobody would believe it if I could really say what happened. I went through months and months of torture.”
Rossdale reportedly had an affair with their children’s nanny. At the time, Stefani said that while she wouldn’t go into detail in interviews, she processed the split through her music.
“All you have to do is listen to every single song I’ve ever written and it’s all there,” she said. “It’s an ongoing theme that I’ve had for a long time.”
Gwen Stefani said she felt a sense of embarrassment over her divorce
On top of feeling devastated by the end of her marriage, Stefani admitted to feeling embarrassed. Her parents had been married for decades, and she wanted a relationship like theirs.
“I don’t think you’ll talk to one person who didn’t make it in a marriage who’s not gonna feel [embarrassed],” she told Glamour. “The intention of being married is the vow, right? You want to put everything into it to make it a success. And all I had to look at was the huge success of my parents: They just had their fiftieth anniversary. I had to work really hard at marriage, all the time, like everybody, but ours was extra hard, when you add that we’re from different countries, both of us being in music, and celebrity.”
She admitted she felt like a failure, but she doesn’t think this is an uncommon sentiment during a divorce.
“[Marriage] was the one thing I didn’t want to fail at,” she said. “People can say whatever they want to about me … and I don’t get too affected. But I didn’t want them to think I was a failure. There’s nothing weird about how I felt.”
Gavin Rossdale said he doesn’t have a connection with his ex-wife
According to Rossdale, he and Stefani no longer have much of a relationship. He said he wishes they got along better for the sake of their children.
“The biggest thing would be when you see the kids that sometimes there’s a loss,” he said on the Amy and T.J. podcast (via Page Six). “It’d be nice if there was more of a connection with the person who made them with me.”
His own parents separated and remarried multiple times, and he hadn’t wanted that for his kids.
“I wish I could have found a way to not have that in their lives,” he said. “It wasn’t fun for me to come from a broken home. It can be quite debilitating for kids … the overriding things is you don’t want to let your kids down.”
