Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani took the stage together to perform their new duet, “Purple Irises” at the ACM Awards. The song is from Stefani’s next album.
“We love this song so much,” Shelton said when the song was released. “It’s a song Gwen wrote with a couple of friends of hers, and I fell in love with it the first time I heard it. She knew there was something different about it and asked me to come in and sing with her. My longtime producer, Scott Hendricks, produced it, and Gwen’s been wanting to work with him for a long time now, and it’s turned into this really cool and different song that can live anywhere.”
Blessing us with their talents, here’s @gwenstefani and @blakeshelton singing “Purple Irises” 💜🪻
Watch the #ACMawards on @PrimeVideo now → https://t.co/H8DgKcESzm pic.twitter.com/jxfYh1Nwv8
— ACM Awards (@ACMawards) May 17, 2024
The couple, who met on The Voice, began dating in 2015, and wed in 2021, with their romance as strong as ever, in spite of their busy careers.
“If you would’ve told me the first season that we met that what was gonna happen, I would’ve been like, ‘No, we actually don’t even have anything to even talk about’… It’s crazy how things work out,” Shelton recently told Entertainment Tonight.
Shelton not only fell in love with Stefani, but also became passionate about his role as a stepfather to her three sons, Kingston, Zuma and Apollo, whom she shares with her former husband, Gavin Rossdale.
“If I could have a repeat of these past ten years, [that] would be perfect,” Shelton reflected. “Next month, we’ve got an 18-year-old, which it blows my mind that already happened. And in a couple of years, we’ll have another 18-year-old. And that’s… it’s gonna be I guess a lot more alone time, which I’m not mad about that either.”
“But we still have Apollo,” he added, “so we have another almost ten years before we can kick him out, so it should be a lot of fun.”
Although the relationship between Shelton and Stefani is stronger than ever, it was Stefani’s own insecurities that led her to write “Purple Irises.”
“I had been going through those times where you’re questioning: ‘Oh my gosh, am I just getting older? Am I cute?’” Stefani admitted to Nylon. “In my own relationship, even though I know the truth of what’s happening today, you still create drama in your own mind about your insecurities and what might happen. I was in that phase of the relationship with Blake and getting paranoid.”
Shelton just announced his return to The Voice for the Season 25 finale on May 21. Stefani will return as a coach for Season 26, along with Reba McEntire, Snoop Dogg and Michael Bublé.