Miranda Lambert and Blake Shelton had a romantic start as a pair of musicians: they fell in love onstage while singing a duet. They felt an instant connection, which proved problematic for both of them. Shelton was married and Lambert had a fiancé. Lambert admitted it was difficult to confess her feelings for Shelton.

Miranda Lambert said it was hard to accept she was falling for Blake Shelton

Lambert and Shelton performed the song “You’re the Reason God Made Oklahoma” for CMT’s 100 Greatest Duets event. They felt an instant attraction to one another despite their respective partners. Lambert said this was difficult for her.

“It’s never an easy thing to go through, but it happens every day,” she told Good Housekeeping in 2012 (per Yahoo!). “People fall in and out of love; they get divorced and remarried. I didn’t expect to find myself in that situation, but I just dealt with it.”

She felt a much stronger connection with Shelton than she did with her fiancé.

“I think that God has a person for you; Blake Shelton is in my life for a reason,” she said. “He’s supposed to be my husband.”

Still, she said she kept things friendly until Shelton finalized his divorce the following year.

Blake Shelton felt the same way about Miranda Lambert

Shelton also said he felt an instantaneous connection to Lambert. It took him by surprise.

“I’ve never had that kind of experience with anybody,” he told Entertainment Weekly. “I was a married guy, you know? Standing up there and singing with somebody and going, ‘Man, this shouldn’t be happening.’ Looking back on that, I was falling in love with her, right there on stage.”

He felt guilty about his feelings for Lambert.

“I was married,” he said on 60 Minutes. “That was easily the toughest thing that I’ve, you know, been through.”

He said the experience of ending his first marriage ranked up there with the loss of his brother in terms of difficulty.

Her ex-fiancé said there was infidelity in the relationship 

Shelton and Lambert divorced in 2015. In 2018, Lambert was rumored to be involved with singer Evan Felker, a married man. Shelton appeared to tweet about the situation.

“Been taking the high road for a long time … I almost gave up. But I can finally see something on the horizon up there!! Wait!! Could it be?! Yep!! It’s karma!!”

Lambert’s former fiancé, Jeff Allen, responded. He was with Lambert when she met Shelton, and he said there had been some romantic overlap.

“You know, I’ve always given you the benefit of the doubt and chalked it up to just being human,” he wrote (via Us Weekly). “But you must be one arrogant SOB to pop off something like this, when I know damn good and well you were cheating on your wife and Miranda was cheating on me when you two started up.”

Allen said he never would have said anything about the infidelity if it hadn’t been for Shelton’s tweet.