May is shaping up to be quite the month for Gwen Stefani. Not only did the 46-year-old singer appear in James Corden’s latest Carpool Karaoke segment, but she also released her new country-style duet, “Go Ahead and Break My Heart,” with her beau, Blake Shelton. Now word has it that The Voice costars will be taking the stage at next week’s Billboard Music Awards. As we brace for the lovebirds’ upcoming performance, here, five things you probably didn’t know about Gwen Stefani.
1. Stefani wasn’t always the frontwoman of No Doubt—in fact, her older brother, Eric, actually persuaded her to join the group as a backup vocalist in the late ’80s. “I wasn’t doing anything, and [Eric] would say, ‘Come in here and sing with me!’ ” Stefani once said. The band was actually formed by John Spence, the original vocalist, who came up with the name No Doubt. A year after the band formed, Spence committed suicide. Eric has said that that tragedy nearly destroyed the nascent group. “I guess I didn’t really know him,” Stefani once said. “He was hurting so badly that he couldn’t talk to anyone about it.” The group’s responsibilities shifted; Stefani took over the lead vocals and her older brother began creating the band’s logo for T-shirts and fliers. His new position foreshadowed his eventual career shift: A few years in, Eric left the band and became an animator on The Simpsons.
2. No Doubt nearly called it quits before their hit album, Tragic Kingdom, was released. “We almost gave up about a year and a half ago,” Stefani said in 1996. “We were sitting there saying to ourselves, ‘Okay, we are 26. We’ve been doing this for eight years. Maybe we should finish up and get adult lives now.’ Then the record came out and people thought it was good, which was really weird, because we were always the dork band from Anaheim.” Despite the group’s edgy style and ska-punk aesthetic, Stefani said that she didn’t feel like she fit in with the grittiness of her contemporaries. “We never were cool enough or tough enough, because we grew up in Orange County with all those punk bands,” she continued. “We played with them, but I always felt like Shirley Temple—just this little lollipop out there—and I could never have a really raspy or loud, screaming voice. We just never fit in. Plus, all the L.A. people looked down on us because we were from Orange County. We weren’t ‘cool.’ ”
3. Stefani, who has said that she would make her own clothing ahead of her performances, had an interesting sartorial superstition: “I always have a way better show if I wear pants,” she once said. “You discover all these things after several years. I just said, ‘Forget it, I’m not wearing a dress anymore.’ Fashion is an extension of your personality, and I’ve always been obsessed. I always want to have something different than everybody else.”
4. Speaking of dresses, the red vinyl skater frock Stefani wore on the cover of Tragic Kingdom was stolen from an Orange County, California, museum in 2005. The iconic dress was on display as part of a rock ’n’ roll history exhibit at the Fullerton Museum Center. “We’re trying to figure out how this was accomplished,” the show’s curator said at the time. “It’s awfully selfish, almost sociopathic, to think that your interest in the band matters more than anyone else who would want to see it.” The band asked that the dress be returned, “no questions asked,” but sadly the garment still remains missing.
5. Stefani once told Vogue that she didn’t consider acting until her singing career took off and Hollywood came knocking. While she ended up with cameos in Zoolander and The Aviator, Stefani almost landed the lead role in 2005’s Mr. & Mrs. Smith. “It was between me and Angelina Jolie, and I’m like, ‘Oh, great. I got a shot here,’ ” she said in 2008. She was also nearly cast in The Black Dahlia. “But I don’t know whether I would ever even do it if they offered it to me because it’s kind of a racy part,” she said during the audition process. “I know I’m not going to get it, because I think the character is so the opposite of me. She’s really dark and naughty and slutty. And she has black hair.” In the end, the part went to Scarlett Johansson.