Gwen Stefani
Life as a musician with a baby was pure overwhelm
Gwen Stefani with her sons and husband Blake Shelton.
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Motherhood in the spotlight: Gwen Stefani shares insights into her challenging double life as a full-time mother and full-blooded musician.
Gwen Stefani (54) spoke about how challenging it was to lead the life of a busy musician with her partly newborn children. By According to People, the now 54-year-old reports on the podcast “The Skinny Confidential Him & Her Show” about the severe overwhelm.
Stefani took her first son, Kingston, on a world tour with 120 stops in 2007 when he was nine months old. “I’ve waited my whole life to become a mother,” she explains her decision. “That’s all I’ve wanted my whole life, and that’s why I haven’t stopped breastfeeding.” In a small cradle, Kingston traveled with her around the world on the tour bus. He was fed until shortly before the show. When she had free time, Stefani went on a sightseeing tour with her child in the respective city. “I never watched anything before because I was so tired, but this time I thought, ‘Okay, I have to take the baby.'”
“I just didn’t have anything left in me”
Just a month after the grueling tour ended and Stefani was set to work on a comeback with No Doubt, she became pregnant again, this time with her son Zuma, who was born in 2008. “I just had nothing left in me. And I went back to be with them [No Doubt] to work. And then I got pregnant with Zuma. And I think everyone was very disappointed,” Stefani recalls.
Working in the studio also put the musician under pressure. She felt “guilty and selfish” when she had to leave her children for work and was frustrated when she didn’t get inspiration. “I’m not with my kids and I’m wasting my time because I’m not good enough to write a damn song,” she describes the situation at the time.
“I thought I would be dead after the tour”
Nevertheless, the band developed the record “Push and Shove” and went on a 60-stop tour. This time too, the musician took her two children with her. “We went back on tour with the Babies and that took it to another level,” she remembers. During these years she didn’t have any time off, says Stefani. “I thought I would be dead after the tour.”
Baby number three, Apollo, followed in 2014. The fact that she would become pregnant again at the age of 43 was “a true miracle” for Stefani. This third pregnancy also came as a surprise to her fellow musicians: “I think the band thought, ‘What the hell?'”
All three sons come from Gwen Stefani’s relationship with Bush frontman Gavin Rossdale (58). The two filed for divorce in 2015 after 13 years of marriage. Stefani has been married to country musician Blake Shelton (47) since 2021.