107.9 The Link (Jan. 15th 2016)

Gwen Stefani

[edited version]

So here’s a question for you. Your music - and I think your work in fashion too - is so autobiographical, whether it’s like the huge uber girl anthem, Just A Girl, or the new song, Used To Love You. It’s impossible to imagine that you write a song from anything other than a place of really authentic experience. So given that your work is so autobiographical and so public, and now you probably can’t even go to 7/11 without seeing tabloids with crazy stories - everything from Gwen’s having an alien baby on down - how do you manage to keep the you that’s you separate from that, so that you can do the work?

You know what, it’s - I feel like in my whole like career or life, I’ve never been like a tabloid type person, you know. I just - I have such a normal life, you know, and I feel like lately it’s definitely gotten to a different place. But I think that’s from being on TV; it just takes it to another place that I’ve never experienced before. Being on The Voice and being on a show that reaches so many people puts you in a whole different, like, position. I remember Adam telling me, he goes, ‘Get ready, this is going to be something that you’ve never experienced before.’ Cos obviously, like, I’ve had success and I’ve been around the world and I have all that, but I live a pretty normal life. I think the worst of it is probably just the paparazzi, which, for me, honestly, I want to say - You don’t get used to it but you get used to it where I’m at the point where I’m like, I’m almost like when they’re not there, I’m like, ‘What? Where are they?’ I’m just so used to that. But the tabloid thing is weird. I have to say, like, I’ve been so lucky because I got to grow up in a time where, you know, it was so much more mysterious. The people that you loved, you didn’t know anything about them. You had no access to them. Now I also get to live in a time where you can have direct relationships with people. Like I can read stuff what people are thinking and I can talk to people right away. And I can write a song and put it out in real time when I’m going through the problem. So I love to be able to have that experience of living in both times. It’s just a magical time, actually, to be able to connect to people. You know, I don’t think I’ve ever really been super affected by what people say about me, because I live in reality, which is the people that I love and the people that are in my life. Those are the real people I know. Everybody else is just, I don’t know who they are. Like they’re not in my life so.

But I think that your karma is really good. Because even when the tabloids are splashing you all over the place, it’s always in this really positive way. It’s always like, ‘Gwen looks happy!’ 

Aww.

I mean, what celebrity gets positive tabloid coverage, right!?

I have to say, some of it is so funny. What’s crazy is, like, that I have family now, so they see stuff too. So that’s kind of hard. I think that’s the hardest part is trying to protect the kids from all of it. But again, like, they’ve had paparazzi from the moment they were born. Before they were born. In my tummy. So they kind of are used to it, too. You know, we just talk about what’s real and what’s not real.