As far as country music legends go, Blake Shelton has earned himself a spot among the greats.
Still, you don't make it as far as he has without stepping on some boots.
From missteps to marital issues, this is the shady side of Blake Shelton.
Things were different for Shelton when he arrived in Nashville,
and not just because he was rocking a mullet. As Country Fancast noted,
he was romantically attached to his high school sweetheart, who was his tour manager
at the beginning of his career, when he found success with his first big hit "Austin" in 2001.
The two got hitched in 2003, with Shelton recounting his proposal to CMT that year, saying,
"I got in from hunting that morning, and asked her to marry me, and we went back out hunting."
It was a backwoods dream come true — until they divorced in 2006. The split was hard on Shelton,
who told 60 Minutes that it was, quote, "the toughest thing that I'd ever been through."
Still, it seems the decision was easier than he let on,
as he had already met the woman who would become his next wife: Miranda Lambert.
When the two performed "You're the Reason God Made Oklahoma" for CMT's 100 Greatest Duets in 2005,
their chemistry was palpable. In 2011, Shelton told Behind the Music,
"I was a married guy, you know. Looking back on that, I was falling in love with her."
Confirmation of their relationship wouldn't come until 2007, but you can read into his ex-wife's
divorce filing, which cited "inappropriate marital conduct," however you'd like.
Oh, and Shelton ditched his mullet around the same time.
Shelton and Miranda Lambert's entire relationship was in the limelight, and they were candid about
the pressures of tabloid scrutiny. Shelton revealed to 60 Minutes that they stopped doing
interviews together as their marriage was, quote, "all we got left that's private," and Lambert
poked fun at being, quote, "married to a man who's married to attention" on 2014's "Priscilla." When
they did speak about their relationship, however, it was a double-edged sword.
"We're not country music stars at home, we're very normal country people."
While their 2008 tour was a success,
Lambert admitted to Redbook that she was, quote "glad we decided to keep both of our buses,"
since Shelton got on her nerves. For his part, Shelton told CMT News the same year,
"As miserable as we are together, it's way more miserable when we're apart."
"We sing to each other all the time and it normally doesn't go that well because
for the most part I can't stand the music that she listens to."
After their 2011 marriage, Shelton's trickster attitude was a continued point of contention,
and he admitted to People magazine in 2013,
"I'm always pestering her. [...] Anything I can
think of to get a rise out of her is a sport for me."
As infidelity rumors swirled around two years into their marriage,
Shelton divulged to the publication that they totally trusted each other — and had
a "policy" about going through each other's phones. He said,
"[I'll say,] 'Go dig through my drawers or my computer if you feel like you need to.'"
They continued to tease tabloids in tweets, but their 2015 divorce
announcement to Us Weekly revealed no one quite got the last laugh.
Shelton and Lambert announced their divorce in July 2015, stating that, quote, "this was not the
future we envisioned." But things only got shadier after their split went public. Days after their
announcement, amid rumors that Lambert had cheated on Shelton with another country star, Chris Young
took to Twitter to clarify that he was, quote, "not a contributing factor in their divorce."
In fact, weeks later, TMZ alleged that it was "a classic case of he said/she said"
and Shelton was the one who cheated on Lambert with a famous country singer.
To make matters worse, the outlet also reported that Shelton had demanded Lambert
to move her pets out from their shared ranch the same day that the divorce became official.
Despite the conflicting reports, Shelton seemingly pointed the finger at Lambert again with the
release of his next album, If I'm Honest, in 2016. He didn't write the record's third single,
"She's Got a Way With the Words" which recounts a woman who lies,
cheats, and, quote, "puts a big F-U" in his future, but Billboard wrote,
"If you want to assume it describes some of the facts of his divorce, [Shelton] won't stop you."
While Shelton and Lambert only officially called it quits in July 2015,
TMZ reported that Shelton was already dating fellow The Voice judge Gwen Stefani by November.
Within weeks, the new couple was flaunting their relationship all over social media,
from Stefani sharing a video of the two kissing for the holidays,
to Shelton flirting on Twitter about her, quote, "guaranteed greatness" in the recording studio.
Though Shelton seemingly went to great lengths to keep his relationship with Lambert private,
it appears to not be as big of an issue with Stefani. The two have already released a handful
of duets together, including "Go Ahead and Break My Heart" on Shelton's post-divorce LP If I'm
Honest, and "You Make it Feel Like Christmas" from Stefani's 2017 Christmas album of the same name.
That said, Shelton is quick to dismiss any notion of infidelity with his The Voice co-star,
telling Billboard in 2016 that before his divorce,
he, quote, "never really got to know" Stefani despite working together.
After revealing his split to the cast and crew, he said Stefani confided in him that she was going
through a similar situation with Gavin Rossdale, her then-husband of 20 years. They exchanged
numbers to continue supporting each other and grew closer, with Shelton telling the outlet,
"Gwen saved my life. Who else on earth could understand going through
a high-profile divorce from another musician?"
"Gwen Stefani was everybody's dream girl, ya know? So it's like, I was walking on sacred ground."
Following his 2015 divorce from Lambert, Shelton released his tenth album in 2016,
If I'm Honest, and had no scruples in telling Billboard that it was his "divorce record."
The title of the album alone implied that Shelton had a fair amount to say about the split,
and he said the collection, which was mostly recorded six months after things went sour,
provides, quote, "a general idea" about what happened. He explained,
"When you have a broken heart — at least, when I do — you got to get it out of your system.
You want people to sympathize with you. I was at rock bottom, in the middle of hell."
Shelton told the outlet about the inspiration behind the album, saying,
"[The album represents a] very specific time frame [...] [from]
when it became painfully obvious that it wasn't going to work out
[to falling for Gwen Stefani]. [...] It's my happy, falling-in-love-record, too."
At the time, the album's brutal honesty scored him the "second biggest selling debut" of his career.
In 2018, his second ex-wife struck back in her own way,
releasing her divorce anthem "Got My Name Changed Back"
as the lead single from her side-project Pistol Annies' album Interstate Gospel.
The playful video finds her hitting the DMV to ditch her ex's last name, and Lambert called
the track a celebration of "reclaiming yourself" in an interview on the group's YouTube channel.
Shelton is the first person to joke around and not take himself too seriously. He told TMZ in 2012,
"How can you stand to be in this business and not drink your face off?"
However, don't go too far with the jabs. In 2015, TMZ reported Shelton's attorneys struck back at
InTouch Weekly, demanding it rescind a story that alleged Shelton had cheated on Lambert with
country singer Cady Groves. But that was just the start of his legal battles with the press. Later
that year, TMZ also reported that Shelton was suing InTouch Weekly and its parent company for
defamation after it ran a cover story reporting that he was headed to rehab, that his alcohol
addiction had ruined his marriage with Lambert, and that his gig on The Voice was on the line.
By 2017, USA Today reported that Shelton and the publication's lawyers had reached
a settlement and asked the judge to toss out the case. While details are unknown,
both sides reportedly paid their own litigation costs.
Despite the hurt feelings, the singer continues to boast about booze, but on his own terms. Like
when he took swigs from a cup that read "I drink, get over it" at a Fort Lauderdale concert in 2016.
Or when he shamelessly champions his love for liquor with songs like 2019's "Tequila Sheila."
"I'm happy to have you here, we're gonna do the, oh yeah here we go."
Shelton has become one of Twitter's favorite loud mouths since joining in 2008,
amassing over 20 million followers. He attributed his "unfiltered" tweets to
the reason why NBC recruited him for The Voice, telling Billboard in 2016,
"They probably [...] thought, 'We need somebody that'll shake things up.'
In country music, everybody [else] falls in line."
Fellow country singer Trace Adkins agreed, telling the outlet,
"He says whatever he wants to say, and it has turned into a gold mine."
But speaking your mind has consequences, even if you're an eight-time Grammy nominee. In 2016,
Shelton apologized for resurfaced misogynistic and homophobic tweets, writing,
"Everyone knows comedy has been a major part of my career and it’s always been
out there for anyone to see. That said anyone that knows me also knows I have no tolerance
for hate of any kind or form. Can my humor at times be inappropriate and immature?
Yes. Hateful? Never. That said I deeply apologize to anybody who may have been offended."
Still, the country singer loves a good troll. When a fan tweeted
she didn't like Shelton's new music, he fired back, writing,
"Someone who doesn't know me at all can't stand me! How will I live. To any haters out there,
have yourself a nice warm cup full of camel balls."
In 2020, the power of Taylor Swift's fan base forced him to delete a tweet and apologize
when he told a Swiftie to, quote, "[get] out of your mom's basement for a while" after the fan,
who didn't tag Shelton, said they'd burn down his house if he blocked Swift's number one debut.
Shelton may have seen a "Neon Light" at the end of a tunnel in his 2014 Gold-certified track,
but the city of Nashville wanted him to turn it the heck down! In 2019, the Nashville location of
Shelton's restaurant chain Ole Red, named after his hit tune, lost a lawsuit against the city's
Metro Historic Zoning Commission, according to News Channel 5 Nashville. The bar was banned
from using its signature red exterior lights, as city regulations reportedly ban the use of
colored lights "outside of buildings in historic overlay districts [to] protect the character of
historical areas," a category Shelton's honky-tonk falls into, thanks to its spot on Broadway.
The Ryman Hospitality Group, which co-owns Shelton's Ole Red,
doubled down on its original design, saying in a statement that they are, quote, "exploring and
intend to pursue additional avenues" that would allow them to continue lighting the building the
same way. Considering Shelton and his partners opened a new location in Orlando the next year,
it seems they're not afraid of causing a little heat in the name of a good time.
Shelton has been a country music mainstay for decades, and he's seen fads come and go.
But bro-country, a subgenre Vulture coined in 2013 as "music by and of the tatted, gym-toned,
party-heart young American white dude," forced Shelton to get a little hypocritical. After a 2014
Washington Times article lumped Shelton in the category with Luke Bryan and Florida Georgia Line,
the singer took to Twitter to slyly defend himself, writing,
"Ha! I just read an article that includes me in the 'Bro-Country' genre."
He brushed it off by listing the other subgenres he's been named in,
including "pop-country," "traditional," and "hick-hop." In 2016, he seemed to further
separate himself from his peers at the opening of his Country Music Hall of Fame exhibit, saying,
"In 2001, you didn't show up wearing a T-shirt and a baseball cap to be on stage,
and that's just still my mentality. Clearly I'm one of the last ones standing."
A look at Shelton's discography shows that perhaps the line between him and his
bro-country peers isn't so clear. While Shelton admitted to Billboard in 2016
that his 2013 mega-hit "Boys 'Round Here" was, quote, "a stupid song,"
even his newer fare, like 2019's "Hell Right," has been written off by critics as bro-country.
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