Gwen Stefani dropped by On Air with Ryan Seacrest on Monday (Dec. 7) to dish about her engagement to Blake Shelton, planning a wedding during the pandemic and more.
“It’s so funny to even say ‘engaged.’ It feels so weird. People have been saying it for so long, like five years, ‘Are you getting married? Are you engaged?’ And now we actually are and it feels like I’m in a cartoon or something,” the pop star told host Ryan Seacrest about the couple’s long-awaited engagement.
However, when Seacrest asked what size wedding she would prefer in a “post-pandemic world,” Stefani was quick to factor the reality of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic into her and Shelton’s plans.
“I would say I just want my parents there at this point. Like, my parents wouldn’t come to Thanksgiving because they’re so scared, so really would rather it not be a COVID situation. Like, I would rather not have masks and that kind of thing,” she said before adding, “Even when you cut it down to just family, it’s too many people for COVID so we’re sort of, like, gonna see what happens in the next few months but…”
Stefani also opened up about the creative process behind her new single “Let Me Reintroduce Myself,” revealing she’s recorded “a pile of about 20″ songs for a potential new album following some encouragement from fellow The Voice coach Kelly Clarkson. (The star’s most recent non-holiday solo album was 2016’s This is What the Truth Feels Like, which she followed up the next year with 2017’s You Make it Feel Like Christmas.)
“I just started thinking about, like, if I did music, I want to go back to the start,” she said. “Like, how did I start getting into music? Because my kids are at that age where they’re really starting to define who they are through the music that they love…So I started thinking a lot about the reggae music and the ska music and how I started and going back to the basics. So this song sort of is like…reintroduced myself. I’m still the same person, but yet evolved.”
Check out Stefani’s full chat with Seacrest — including how her new music ties back to her days with No Doubt — below.