After 13 years of marriage, Gwen Stefani decided to call it quits with her ex-husband Gavin Rossdale in 2015 after uncovering that the man she once deemed the love of her life was living a double life.
The British musician was caught cheating by his other half when she found a string of suggestive text messages on the family’s iPad, which was more than enough evidence for the Hollaback Girl singer to confront her former flame about it — prompting him to confess about his cheating ways.
The split was devastating for Stefani - who is now married to Blake Shelton - particularly because she was completely blindsided by the affair. Not to mention, the two are also parents to three boys: Kingston, Zuma, and Apollo, which meant that by ending the marriage, Stefani was also breaking up the happy family life she once thought she shared with Rossdale and the kids.
Sources claimed the Glycerine star had been romantically involved with the nanny, Mindy Mann, who lost her job shortly after Stefani found out what was going in when she wasn’t at their LA home. Here’s the lowdown…
Was Gwen Stefani Ready For The Divorce?
In an interview with Harper’s Bazaar, the No Doubt lead singer said that she had tortured herself for months after she had found evidence proving her husband hadn’t been all that faithful in her marriage.
Stefani said she had been using the family’s iPad one day, which just so happened to be synced to Rossdale’s own Apple devices (bad move), which is how all the cheating concerns had first came about.
After reading some very explicit messages between Rossdale and the nanny, Stefani told the publication that she kept the matter a secret for around eight months as she tried to make sense of her husband living a double life.
The blonde beauty described the ordeal as “hell” as she was only torturing herself by not addressing the situation earlier — but Stefani also had to think about her children and how it would affect them if Rossdale did, in fact, cheat.
"Everybody knows what happened next... I obviously know the date,” she recalled. ”It was the beginning of hell. Like six, seven, eight months of torture, trying to figure out this big secret.”
She admitted to feeling like telling everybody about Rossdale’s cheating ways but she knew that in doing so, she would hurt her children immensely, so Stefani opted to pray instead.
"What happened was praying. That's my childhood, that's how I was raised. And I think I strayed from that. But you know when it gets that bad, you just get desperate? You're on your knees. You're like, 'What do I do?' You can't even go to your parents and ask them what to do.”
Did Gwen Stefani Have A Prenup?
By 2017, Stefani and Rossdale were finally able to reach a divorce settlement, five years after going their separate ways.
It should be noted that The Voice judge did not have a prenuptial agreement in place — presumably because she was convinced the marriage would last a lifetime.
But instead of making a money-hungry attempt to seek as much money out of Stefani as possible, the pair mutually agreed to share several of their properties, along with joint custody of their three sons.
And the best part about the whole settlement was that Rossdale did not ask for child support even though he could have very well requested anywhere in the ballpark of $75,000 since he shares three children with the pop superstar, who is worth a reported $150 million.
The two agreed to an unequal split of property, a source told People, with Stefani taking the greater portion while they both agreed to 50-50 custody of their children.
How Gwen Stefani Bounced Back After Her Divorce
Divorce is never easy, but instead of dwelling on the past, Stefani decided to return to the studio and record her third album This Is What the Truth Feels Like, which was released in March 2016.
Most of the songs were said to have been written with Rossdale in mind, and while the recording process was no easy task for the momma-of-three, she looked at the procedure as being quite therapeutic.
“It’s weird how time can go so quickly, especially when you’re a mother of three boys — I went from that horrible time in my life [her 2015 divorce from Gavin Rossdale], and that was when I wrote that last record,” Stefani told Vogue.
“My life was falling apart,” she continued. “[Writing the 2016 album] wasn’t to do with anything other than saving my own life. That’s a completely different place to be. Then halfway through [recording], I fall in love with this cowboy guy — like, what the hell?”
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