Inside Blake Shelton's Close Bond With Gwen Stefani's Kids

Gwen Stefani’s Kids Support Blake Shelton at ACM Awards 2026 Performance

When Blake Shelton fell in love with Gwen Stefani, he knew she came as a packaged set.

But he didn't anticipate just how hella good he was going to feel about becoming a stepfather to Kingston, 20, Zuma, 17, and Apollo, 12, Stefani's kids with ex-husband Gavin Rossdale.

"I didn't know what I was signing up for, but I was all about signing up for it," Shelton, whose cup runneth over as he celebrates his 50th birthday June 18, said during the 2022 Country Radio Seminar. "And every day I've fallen in love with the boys as much as I do with Gwen."

As he put it to People that December, "They've taught me something about myself that I never knew. I'm more than just a country singer or a goofy guy. I'm someone they actually lean on, and that's not a responsibility that I ever had and not something that I ever considered even being into."

And the boys, who as the sons of the respective lead singers of Bush and No Doubt, may have not ever envisioned themselves being into country music—or anything country, for that matter. But all horizons have broadened, and Zuma and Apollo were at the 2026 ACM Awards May 17 at Las Vegas' MGM Grand Garden Arena to support Shelton while their mom was busy playing at The Sphere down the road.

Frederic J. BROWN / AFP via Getty Images

But for the most part, Shelton's happy anywhere lately, so long as his family is nearby.

And his decision to leave The Voice in 2023 after 23 seasons was in no small part because he wanted to spend more time with his stepsons.

"The kids see me as a very important person in their life," he explained to People. "[When they ask,] 'Why isn't Blake here?' I take that stuff to heart. I've made plenty of money, but you can't buy time back. I don't want any regrets."

Neither did Stefani, which is why she took a beat to consider whether it was "insane" to start something new with Shelton just a few months after she and Rossdale split up in the summer of 2015.

"We had just met, and it was chaos," the 56-year-old told People in 2024. "Both of our lives were in complete turmoil, all over the ground...There was a point where I was like, 'I can't even talk to you.'"

Yet she and Shelton, who was mid-divorce from Miranda Lambert, coupled up and never looked back. And he took building a bond with Stefani's kids very seriously from the beginning.

Asked if her then-future second husband was going to make a good father, Stefani said on Today in 2019, "He is a good dad, actually. He’s been helping me out a lot, so I literally get to the point where I’m like, ‘You gotta get home, I need help.’ It’s hard."

Gwen Stefani/Instagram

Shelton also admitted there was "definitely nothing easy" about parenting, noting in 2021 on KFROG's The Ride With Kimo & Heather, "I don't know if it's as hard or harder or not as hard as being an actual biological parent, you know?"

He weighed in again a few years later, having learned more about putting the step in stepdad.

"I think it’s, in some ways, harder," Shelton said on Today in 2024 of his parental role. "I try to be careful about when to step back, and be smart about when to step back and just talk, but no matter what always be there if I’m needed."

But he couldn't wait to step up when it came to showing Kingston, Zuma and Apollo the ropes on his Oklahoma farm.

"I get to teach them the country, you know, and I love that," he said at the Country Radio Seminar. "Whether it's music, whether it's literally getting out, getting their hands in the dirt or being out on the ranch, seeing the animals, whatever, you know? I absolutely love being the person that gets to introduce them to that stuff."

Shelton recalled how the kids were wide-open-space novices when they first started spending time on his rural home turf.

Gwen Stefani/Instagram

"The two of them were like, ‘Well, what do we do now?'" he said of Kingston and Zuma's first taste of Tishomingo, Okla. "I go, ‘Go out that door and don’t come back till you’re too tired to go any further.’ Well, they can’t even imagine just going down to the creek with a net or turning over rocks or getting on a buggy and driving around."

Yet while Shelton and his wife are planning some "actual, real professional gardening" on the farm this year, as he shared in a March video, he has already professed a little nostalgia for the days when all the kids were, well, kids.

"If I could have a repeat of these past 10 years, [that] would be perfect," he told Entertainment Tonight in April 2024, a month before Kingston's 18th birthday. "Next month, we've got an 18-year-old, which it blows my mind that already happened. And in a couple of years, we'll have another 18-year-old. And that's...it's gonna be a lot more alone time, which I'm not mad about that either."

"But," he added, "we still have Apollo, so we have another almost 10 years before we can kick him out, so it should be a lot of fun."

See more of the sweetest things Stefani and Shelton have said about their family:

(Originally published May 19, 2026, at 1:11 p.m. PT)