Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani began a romantic relationship in 2015, shortly after they both ended their marriages. They both have said that meeting the other person felt like a revelation. Shelton also said that before he met his future wife, he considered himself a bit of a “jerk.”

Blake Shelton described himself as a jerk before he met Gwen Stefani

Shelton and Stefani met while they both worked as coaches on The Voice. He was going through a divorce from Miranda Lambert when they began a relationship. Shelton said he didn’t like to reflect on the person he was before Stefani came into his life. 

“I don’t want to remember what I was like before Gwen, actually,” he told Entertainment Tonight backstage at The Voice.

He joked that he was still a bit of a jerk, but added that Stefani made him a better person.

“I’m a little bit of a jerk to you still,” he told fellow Voice coach, Kelly Clarkson. “But I was a jerk to everybody … Look how nice I am now!” 

His fellow coaches agreed. They said they liked the influence Stefani had over Shelton when they were both working on The Voice. 

“I love the energy with them being on the show together,” coach John Legend said. “It kind of softens Blake a little bit.”

Blake Shelton spoke about how he felt after meeting Gwen Stefani

When Shelton told the coaches on The Voice that he was getting a divorce, he noticed that Stefani got very emotional at his words. He didn’t know at the time, but she had recently ended her marriage to Gavin Rossdale. 

“I won’t forget that day,” he told Billboard in 2016. “I looked over at Gwen — who I didn’t really know — and she had these huge tears in her eyes. I thought, ‘Wow, she feels super bad for me!’”

Afterward, she confided in him. Their relationship continued to develop from there.

“I thought it was going to be another one of those things-are-going-to-be-OK talks,” he said. “She didn’t tell me much, because we didn’t know each other at the time, but she said, ‘I’m going through something very similar to what you’re going through. I understand. And I hate it.’ That’s kind of how our friendship and bond started, that day.”

Shelton said having someone who understood what he was going through felt like a miracle to him.

“Gwen saved my life,” he said. “Who else on earth could understand going through a high-profile divorce from another musician? You can’t even imagine the similarities in our divorces.”

Miranda Lambert once blamed her ex-husband for the end of their relationship

While Shelton didn’t like to think about the person he was pre-Stefani, his ex, Lambert, certainly did. According to one friend, she poured her negative feelings towards Shelton into her music. As she grew older, though, she let go of the blame.

“Miranda is older and wiser now and she no longer lays all the blame at Blake’s feet,” a friend told In Touch Weekly. “Now it still gives her fodder for writing hit songs!”