Gavin Rossdale Calls ‘Debilitating’ Divorce From Gwen Stefani His ‘Simplest Shame’

The exes split in 2015 and continue to co-parent their three sons.

Gavin Rossdale is sharing his side of his divorce from Gwen Stefani. The 58-year-old Bush frontman has kept mostly quiet about his ex and their three children, but on this week’s episode of the Amy & T.J. podcast with Amy Robach and T.J. Holmes, he opened up about his “clearest, simplest shame,” which was giving his children a “broken home.”

Rossdale and 54-year-old Stefani share sons Kingston, 17, Zuma, 15, and Apollo, 10. Rossdale is also dad to 35-year-old daughter Daisy Lowe from a previous relationship with Pearl Lowe.

Rossdale and Stefani first met in 1995 and tied the knot in 2002. They announced their split in 2015 amid rumors that Rossdale had been unfaithful to Stefani.

“I never thought I’d ever get divorced. So there’s a simple shame in my life,” Rossdale explained.

Noting that both of his parents had been married three times, he added that he never wanted his children to have a similar experience to his own.
Gavin Rossdale with sons Kingston and Zuma in 2016. – Jason LaVeris/FilmMagic
“I feel bad for my kids, that’s it,” he said. “I wish I could have found a way to not have that in their lives. It wasn’t fun for me to come from a broken home… It can be quite debilitating for kids… the overriding things is you don’t want to let your kids down.”

Without directly naming Stefani, Rossdale said, “The biggest thing would be when you see the kids that sometimes there’s a loss. It’d be nice if there was more of a connection with the person who made them with me.”

Stefani remarried singer Blake Shelton in 2021. The No Doubt front woman first bonded with the country singer on The Voice when she was splitting up from Rossdale and Shelton was going through a divorce from Miranda Lambert.

“I go to a lot of events where there’s ‘the other team,’ so to speak and I just feel really proud of myself in my consistency as a father. I know in my heart that I’m super consistent,” the British musician said, seemingly referencing Stefani and Shelton.

And despite what he described as a “very contentious, hugely emotional, flared-up situation,” Rossdale noted that he does his best not to speak about Stefani.
Gwen Stefani and Blake Shelton with her and Gavin Rossdale’s sons. – Emma McIntyre/Getty Images

“Less said, soonest mended and I said nothing,” he said of the divorce. “I’m handcuffed because I would never want to overly say anything negative about their mom. That’s just not right.”

Rossdale said he has a peace about how things have turned out between him and Stefani.

“I think that there’s no accidents in life so you are where you’re meant to be. So I don’t live in regret,” he shared. “Life just unfolds how it should.”

In fact, he recently went Instagram official with his musician girlfriend, Xhoana, revealing that she has met his and Stefani’s children.