Blake Shelton Reflects on Gwen Stefani's 10th Anniversary with Joy

Stefani has three boys with her ex-husband Gavin Rossdale. Blake Shelton is looking forward to spending many more years with his wife, Gwen Stefani.

On Wednesday, the 47-year-old country singer spoke with ET's Cassie DiLaura from his new bar, Ole Red Las Vegas, on how much his life has changed in the decade since meeting Stefani, 54, during her inaugural season as a coach on NBC's The Voice. She was only a few months away from expecting her third child with Gavin Rossdale, whom she had divorced from in 2015.

During their 12-year marriage, the No Doubt singer and Bush frontman, 58, had three sons: Kingston (17), Zuma (15), and Apollo (10). Stefani stated in November 2015, three months after filing for divorce from Rossdale, that she and Shelton had started dating. Earlier that year, Shelton announced his divorce from fellow country singer Miranda Lambert, with whom he had been married for four years.

Looking back on their first meeting ten years ago, Shelton said that while they didn't talk much during her first season on The Voice because she had just given birth to Apollo, it didn't take long for their lives -- which were "falling apart," according to tabloids at the time -- to fall together.

"You would see her out at the red chairs if there was a production meeting or whatever and I feel like I got to know Pharrell [Williams] more that year than I did Gwen," he said of her first year. "It wasn't until the season she came back, the next one, that the pieces were falling together."

While some questioned Shelton and Stefani's odd relationship, claiming they didn't think it would continue, the duo is still going strong after all these years. Furthermore, their almost decade-long connection has transformed the "Boys 'Round Here" singer into a fixture in Stefani's boys' life while also making him a better man.

"If I could have a repeat of these past 10 years, [that] would be perfect," he remarked of his expectations for the future. "Next month, we have an 18-year-old, which blows my mind that it has already occurred. And in a few years, we will have another 18-year-old. And that's going to be a lot more alone time, which I'm not complaining about either."

He went on to say, "But we still have Apollo, so we have another almost 10 years before we can kick him out, so it should be a lot of fun."

Shelton said that Kingston, Zuma, and Apollo had altered him "in every possible way." While he has known the boys since 2014, the singer formally became a stepdad in July 2021, when he and Stefani married, less than a year after he proposed five years into their relationship.

"I learned quickly, not because anything happened, but just, you know, reading the room, you've really got [to think], 'I have to take a step back,'" Shelton spoke about his perspective adjustment as he took on the position of stepfather. "When people tell you that it's no longer about you after having a child... I believe that if you do it well, it will no longer be about you. That is true.

The GRAMMY Award contender has always been clear about his intention to raise Stefani's children and accept them as his own from the start. In a 2022 interview at the Country Radio Seminar, he cited his own father, who raised his younger brother via marriage, as his guiding light for how to address the problem.

"He took Richie on and raised him from the time he was 1 year old, and my brother never thought of my dad as anything other than his dad," Shelton told reporters at the time. "My father set an example for me that [kid] was not even considered [in a love relationship]. You have three boys? Awesome! My father did that. My father reared me. I could do it. I had no idea what I was getting myself into, but I was eager to join up. And every day, I fall in love with the boys just as much as I do with Gwen."

However, Shelton's bond with the lads is reciprocal. He told ET that, although they have undoubtedly influenced how he views the world, he has also done the same for them, providing the kids with an entirely different viewpoint than that of their rockstar British father and punk princess mother.

"I get to teach them the country, you know, and I love that," she remarked. "Whether it's music, having their hands in the mud, or going out on the ranch and seeing the animals, you know? I truly adore being the one that gets to expose them to that things."

Regarding whether or not he still pinches himself for getting to wake up next to Stefani every day, Shelton said that certain things will never change, like being surprised by how destiny played a role in their love story.

"No, oh my god," he answered when asked whether he ever anticipated discovering love as he does with the No Doubt singer. "I don't know how you can imagine when you find that life partner, that missing piece, you know, you didn't know what was missing?"

Shelton went on to say, "If you had told me what was going to happen the first season we met, I would have said, 'No, we truly don't even have anything to speak about, you know? What are you talking about? "It's crazy how things work."