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- The Voice coaches Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani have been dating since 2015.
- On October 27, they announced their engagement on Instagram.
Linked since 2015, Gwen Stefani, 51, and Blake Sheltonm 44, met when Stefani inherited the swivel chair left open by Christina Aguilera on NBC’s singing competition juggernaut, The Voice. Who knew that five years after joining the judges panel, she would be engaged to the Southern man who loves wearing jeans to black-tie affairs.
Shelton, who in 2015 was still married to fellow country star and Grammy winner Miranda Lambert, retreated from their union in July 2015 after four years of not-so wedded bliss and tabloid fodder. Stefani followed in Shelton’s footsteps a month later and filed for divorce herself, agreeing to irreconcilable differences with her ex of 13 years, Bush frontman Gavin Rossdale. Without ever having met the other, Shelton and Stefani were now free to make solo romantic decisions.
But we all know now where this is going: Shamelessly flirting on national television. Endless streams of PDA flooding social feeds. And forever frenemy Adam Levine being slowly replaced by Stefani as the most important person in Shelton’s life. We’ve had a plum front-row seat watching these two fall in love. Their romance is one for the history books—scratch that—social media age.
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“If you had told me that that’s who I’m gonna end up with, I would have thought you were crazy. But she became my closest ally,” Shelton told Rolling Stone about Stefani in a June 2016 interview. And today, she's not just his closest ally, but also, his wife-to-be. On October 27, they shared the happy announcement on Instagram and sealed it with a kiss.
"@blakeshelton yes please! 💍🙏🏻," Stefani wrote, while Shelton's caption read, "Hey @gwenstefani thanks for saving my 2020... And the rest of my life.. I love you. I heard a YES!"
Read on for the rest of their love story timeline.
April 2014: Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani begin working together.
As we mentioned in our intro, Stefani joined Adam Levine, Pharrell Williams, and Blake Shelton as a judge on the NBC reality show in the spring of 2014. Both Shelton and Stefani were hitched at the time, however. So we’re assuming their encounters were strictly professional at this point.
November 2014: The first picture surfaces. With a heart emoji.
According to Billboard, later that year Stefani posted her first selfie featuring the mug of her future boo. “💓him @blakeshelton @nbcthevoice,” she captioned the snap, with the pair both flashing their perfect smiles for fans to double tap.
October 2015: Stefani and Shelton get flirty singing “Hotline Bling” onstage.
Though the pair had worked together on The Voice at this point for a solid year, they weren’t really free to act on any feelings until the fall. So when The Voice judges both appeared on a late-fall episode of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon singing a version of Drake’s “Hotline Bling,” eagle-eyed fans were quick to note the pair’s subtle flirting. See for yourself below.
November 2015: The jig is up.
A bourgeoning romance between two of the music industry’s hottest, most intriguing stars is no match for entertainment news reporters. And though the pair consistently fought reports of their rumored romance, it wasn’t long before the charade was up. Shortly after the duo’s late-night duet, the sleuths at E! News published reports that the two were indeed a couple. Their proof: Shelton getting handsy with Stefani at a Maroon 5 Halloween party in Studio City.
Later during an interview with Ryan Seacrest for his radio show, the host asked Stefani about those candid photos, to which Stefani played coy and just said that Shelton was hot. Meanwhile, Shelton’s rep confirmed to E! News that, yes, the two were indeed a couple.
February 2016: Stefani and Shelton make their relationship red carpet official.
No place better than a Vanity Fair Oscars after-party to let the world know that you’re more than friends. Shelton and Stefani, especially, were glowing on the carpet hand in hand—she in a fiery sheer Yanina Couture number with satin overlays in all the right places; he, of course, adorable in jeans and cowboy boots.
May 2016: The couple debuts new music together.
“Go Ahead and Break My Heart” was co-written by both of them but featured on Shelton’s If I’m Honest album. Billboard reported that Shelton sent Stefani the song half-written asking for her input. “She wrote a verse that was brutally honest and didn’t really go with my verse. I was writing about her, and she made it about us. I was so taken aback by it. F***, she’s awesome.”
In that same July 2016 cover story, the singer got deep about his relationship with Stefani. He went on to reveal how messed up he was after his divorce and how the former No Doubt frontwoman pretty much saved his life. “Gwen saved my life. 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.”
February 2017: Stefani fangirls over Shelton on The Tonight Show.
Stefani did not care about playing it cool when she paid a visit to Jimmy Fallon’s late-night talk show. “Let’s just talk only about Blake, because he’s so awesome,” she said before she went on to gush over Shelton, sharing with Fallon how she took him to Disneyland for the first time, how he loves camo, and more. Watch it here.
November 2018: They do Christmas together in a music video.
It was Stefani's turn to feature a song on an album starring her other half. “You Make It Feel Like Christmas,” a track of her holiday EP, is a feel-good jingle that has a holly jolly music video showcasing the couple doing traditional Christmas activities.
In November 2018, rumors swirled that the two were searching for a surrogate and were “determined to have a child together.”
April 2019: The world glimpses blended family life.
For the premiere of UglyDolls, an animated tale that stars the voices of Shelton, Kelly Clarkson, and Nick Jonas, Shelton and Stefani stepped out with Stefani’s three sons, Kingston, Zuma, and Apollo, who she shares with Rossdale.
![STX Films World Premiere Of "UglyDolls" - Arrivals](https://hips.hearstapps.com/hmg-prod/images/uglydolls-1579749357.jpg?resize=980:* "STX Films World Premiere Of "UglyDolls" - Arrivals")
May 2019: Ellen encourages Shelton to pop the question.
On an episode of her daytime talk show, Ellen DeGeneres gifted Shelton with a clock decorated with his and his lady friend’s faces. The story goes: DeGeneres gifted Jennifer Lopez a similar timekeeper and shortly after, her fiancé, Alex Rodriguez, proposed. “So you’re saying there’s a chance she’s going to ask me to marry her?” Shelton joked after he accepted the gift. “You see how I flipped it around and put it on her?”
January 2020: Fans think the pair may already be married.
Shelton chatted with Entertainment Tonight about his and Stefani’s relationship, saying “God had a hand” in bringing them together. Knowing full and well that secret engagement rumors had been swirling for years, he was deliberately vague when asked about the lyrics to one of his songs.
According to Country Living, “The reporter told him that the lyrics to his song—‘I don’t wanna look back in 30 years and wonder who you’re married to’—weren’t helping whispers that they've secretly married.” Of course, Shelton responded, “I love the rumors. Those rumors are great. Anybody that thinks that I’m married to Gwen already, I love it. My God. Who wouldn’t want to be married to Gwen Stefani?”
Meanwhile, the two released the above dreamy, romantic duet “Nobody but You."
October 2020: They actually get engaged.
Whether or not they were secretly enfianced for all of this time is not up for us to know or decide. What we are certain of is that Shelton and Stefani went public with the announcement on October 27, both sharing the same sweet image on their Instagram accounts. Now, congrats are officially in order.
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DeAnna Janes is a freelance writer and editor for a number of sites, including Harper’s BAZAAR, Tasting Table, Fast Company and Brit + Co, and is a passionate supporter of animal causes, copy savant, movie dork and reckless connoisseur of all holidays. A native Texan living in NYC since 2005, Janes has a degree in journalism from Texas A&M and got her start in media at US Weekly before moving on to O Magazine, and eventually becoming the entertainment editor of the once-loved, now-shuttered DailyCandy. She’s based on the Upper West Side.
