Country star Miranda Lambert has had her share of noteworthy experiences in the entertainment industry. Releasing her self-titled debut album when she was still a teenager, she went on to place third on the singing competition Nashville Star in 2003. And on top of her nine solo studio albums to date, Lambert is also a member of the Pistol Annies and has blazed trails for women in country music, earning dozens of accolades. One hurdle the singer-songwriter wasn’t prepared for, however, was how mean people became and how crazy the tabloids went when her marriage to The Voice coach and fellow country singer Blake Shelton ended.
Miranda Lambert and Blake Shelton were still relatively new to stardom when they got together, and after five years of dating, they got married in 2011. By the time they announced their split in 2015, both artists' popularity had skyrocketed, and the end of their longtime romance shocked not just the world of country music, but all of pop culture. To the point where pictures of Lambert and Shelton were on the cover of all kinds of tabloids, amid speculation on what went wrong. The “Kerosene” singer opened up to CBS News about that wild time, and said she channeled those raw and unexpected emotions into her music:
I wasn’t prepared for that [the tabloids]. Well, I don’t think anyone is. And it’s not nice sometimes. But I think you gotta take it with a grain of salt and know that I’m a singer-songwriter, so I can tell my whole truth. I will not lie in my music.
Miranda Lambert has proven herself to be a talented songwriter over the course of her career, so if there’s any silver lining to pull from the dark cloud of divorce, she probably got a few great songs out of it. While the former couple never spoke publicly about exactly what led them to split — even if Blake Shelton has appeared to throw some social media shade — rumors were rampant.
There were cheating allegations, theories about the singers disagreeing over starting a family, and of course their busy careers potentially factoring into it all. In 2011, Blake Shelton started filming two seasons of The Voice every year in Los Angeles, so it’s not hard to imagine that was a change of pace from his life back in Oklahoma.
Regardless of the reasons, Miranda Lambert says she’s at peace now and has learned from her experiences. She’s now been married to New York City police officer Brendan McLoughlin (thirst trap warning!) for three years, and finds that she knows herself better these days than she did back in the early years of her career:
I’ve also grown up and I’ve learned a lot about myself and I think at some point you start to settle into who you are. I think that’s why you feel that peace coming from me, because I feel at peace with myself.
Age certainly has a way of clarifying things, and being able to put complicated emotions into songs doesn’t hurt. Miranda Lambert has won over 30 Academy of Country Music awards, including Female Vocalist of the Year nine consecutive times. In 2015 she became the first woman to win the Country Music Association Awards' Album of the Year twice, and she has been nominated for 21 Grammys, winning three. Miranda Lambert’s ninth studio album, Palomino, was released on April 29. Here's hoping all that success weighs heavier in her mind than a bunch of tabloid rumors as time goes on.
Blake Shelton’s done okay for himself as well, as he prepares for what will likely be his 22nd season on The Voice — though NBC has yet to officially announce the coaching panel for the fall 2022 season — and he also has another game show in the works with Carson Daly. In 2021 he remarried by saying, “I do,” to Gwen Stefani, whom he'd met when she joined the singing competition as a coach in 2014 — just please don’t ask Miranda Lambert about Gwen. Keep up with all the premiere dates for your upcoming shows with our 2022 TV Schedule, and hopefully we’ll hear soon when to expect the return of The Voice for Season 22.
