Miranda Lambert and Gwen Stefani Scott Kirkland/PictureGroup/MEGA; Sara De Boer/startraksphoto.com
Miranda LambertMiranda LambertMiranda Lambert wanted to let her music do the talking. The country crooner was noticeably quiet following her 2015 split from Blake SheltonBlake SheltonBlake Shelton (and the subsequent release of her album The Weight of These Wings one year later), but now Lambert is admitting her ex moving on with Gwen StefaniGwen StefaniGwen Stefani was one of the reasons behind her silence.

“We had another bomb when I told [Sony Music Nashville chief Randy Goodman] I wasn’t going to talk to anyone. And I didn’t,” Lambert, 34, said during an interview with HITs Daily Double published on Tuesday, July 3, referring to the release of her 2016 record. “I came into [manager Marion Kraft]’s office and said, ‘I’m not speaking to anyone until they hear this record.’ That’s fair. I thought that was fair …  It was going to be hell, and I’d already been through hell.”

“It was hell putting it on paper, putting my words on paper. So I didn’t want to rehash,” she continued about doing press. “I’d finally gotten to a place where I wasn’t sad anymore. All the sad moments were there, all the truths were right in those songs. All you had to do was listen. I didn’t need to say anything … When the music was out, people had listened, I got on the phone for the first interview. First question was, ‘How do you feel about Gwen?’ I hung up. I told Marion, I just can’t do this.”
Gwen Stefani and Blake Shelton attend the grand opening of her ‘Just a Girl’ residency at Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino in Las Vegas on June 28, 2018. Gabe Ginsberg/FilmMagic

Lambert and Shelton, 42, called it quits after four years of marriage in July 2015. Four months later, the “Hollaback Girl” singer’s rep confirmed to Us Weekly in November 2015 that she was dating her fellow Voice coach.

“What was in the music was real, and I wanted people to get it from that,” Lambert told HITs Daily Double. “Take from it what they would. Then if I needed to talk, I would. But I haven’t really. Until now.”

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“I think lots of people expected a revenge vibe,” she added. “I’ve heard that a couple of times, but really, this is opposite of that … I didn’t even know really what all it was gonna take to come out of it, but I was gonna feel it. And I was gonna come out alive. Hungover a lot, maybe, but I was gonna get through it. Alive and feeling like death, but it was OK. It was true.”

Us Weekly exclusively revealed in December 2015 that the “Tin Man” singer had started dating Anderson East following her split with Shelton. Us also broke the news of their breakup in April 2017. Lambert has since been linked to the opening act on her tour, Evan Felker, who is in the middle of a divorce from his estranged wife, Staci.

Shelton and Stefani, meanwhile, are still going strong. The pair packed on the PDA in a series of Instagram photos on Thursday, June 28, following the former No Doubt singer’s Just a Girl show in Las Vegas.

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