Gwen Stefani Says It Was ‘Torture’ Trying To Figure Out If Gavin Rossdale Had Cheated

When Gwen Stefani went public about her relationship with Blake Shelton in Autumn 2015, more than a few eyebrows were raised.

After all, the No Doubt singer had only split from her husband of 13 years, Gavin Rossdale, that August. Immediately, the media rushed to sympathise with Gavin, who, it was assumed, had been jilted by his ex and left broken-hearted for another man.

The reality though, was very different indeed. It’s since been revealed that Gavin had likely been cheating on his wife with the family nanny for months, something which first came to Gwen’s attention in February 2015,  six months before the official divorce announcement.

And if you’re in any doubt about where to direct your sympathy now, these quotes from Gwen’s Harper’s Bazaar interview should clear things up. The singer appears on the cover of the magazine’s current issue, and inside has opened up about the “torture” she went through trying to figure out if the rumours of her husband’s infidelity were indeed true.

“February 9,” she says of the day she first heard the allegations. “I obviously know the date.”

Despite wanting to “tell everybody,” Gwen instead chose to stay quiet, rather than implicate her husband without full proof.

“It was the beginning of hell. Like six, seven, eight months of torture, trying to figure out this big secret,” she recalls.

After keeping her impending divorce quiet for months, Gwen finally came clean to Blake in July 2015, after he revealed he was also going through a split, with his wife Miranda Lambert.

“There I was with my big secret, right? And that’s when Blake was like, ‘Everybody, before we go out there, I want to let everyone know that by the time this airs, I will be divorced,'” she says of her first day on the set of The Voice.

After finding support in Blake, the pair began dating. But despite being in a happy relationship, Gwen’s split has left some painful scars. Due to a strict custody agreement, she only sees her three sons – Kingston, ten, Zuma, seven and Apollo, two – part-time.

“It was so insane because not only did my family break up, but then my kids are taken away like half the time, so that was really like, ‘What?! What did I do?'” she says.

The singer says she has found solace in music – she recorded her solo album This Is What The Truth Feels Like last year – and that things are finally going from “horrible to hopeful.”

Fingers crossed there’s more good luck coming her way.

• blake shelton
• gavin rossdale
• Gwen Stefani
• harper's bazaar