Blake Shelton’s early-2000s first impression of Gwen Stefani? “That girl that holds up the orange”

Back at the beginning of both their careers, Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani were living in very different musical worlds. Blake was cutting his teeth in Nashville honky-tonks and putting out his first singles, while Gwen was beginning to notch hits with her band, No Doubt.

It would be years before they’d cross paths on the set of The Voice, fall in love and eventually get married — in fact, Gwen has admitted that early on she had no idea who Blake was and she’d never listened to his music.

Blake knew Gwen from her No Doubt stardom, but in a new interview with ET Online, he jokes that his first impression of her had little to do with her music.

“I would have probably said, ‘Are you talking about that girl that holds up the orange in her video?’” Blake replies, when asked what his younger self would have thought if he could have seen himself marrying Gwen in the future. He was referring to No Doubt’s video for “Don’t Speak.”

“I never understood until now that she’s from Orange County,” he adds. “‘Oh my God, she’s so hot, but why is she obsessed with this freaking orange,’ you know?”

Blake and Gwen tied the knot in August 2021. Their romance has produced a couple of duets, too: They had hit duets with “Nobody But You” and “Happy Anywhere.”