Why Did Miranda Lambert and Blake Shelton Get Divorced? They Were Country Music's Golden Couple

It was the breakup that rocked the country music world. When Miranda Lambert and Blake Shelton divorced in 2015 after four years of marriage and nine years together in total, fans were aghast and could not believe that the genre's royals were over.

Even today, it sometimes seems unreal that the pairing didn't work out, even though both have moved on. Blake is now married to musician Gwen Stefani, whom he began dating in 2015 and then married in 2021, while Miranda is married to former NYPD cop Brendan McLoughlin, whom she began dating in 2018 and married the following year.

A look back explains why Blake and Miranda just simply couldn't last.

It was a quick turnaround between clueing in the public and finalizing the paperwork. On July 20, 2015, Miranda and Blake announced their decision in a joint statement. "This is not the future we envisioned, and it is with heavy hearts that we move forward separately," they said.

They added: "We are real people with real lives, with real family, friends and colleagues. Therefore, we kindly ask for privacy and compassion concerning this very personal matter."

By keeping it personal, they seriously omitted any indication of what drove them apart. Naturally, fans got curious and, eventually, insiders started to spill.

"[Blake] is eager to have children, but she really enjoys not being tied down. I think they both were off on what the time frame would be," one source told Page Six at the time.

On the other hand, TMZ made a much bigger assumption at the time. They alleged that rumors were brewing about a potential affair, with fingers pointed at Miranda. The country star has since denied the accusation.

Around a year later, Blake confessed he was moving on. His song "I Bet You Still Think About Me" seemed pretty telling about the situation. In fact, at the time, it seemed like even he was confused about what led to the end.

At the album release afterparty in May 2016, according to E! News, he said, "At some point whether you go through a divorce or a breakup or whatever, once you get past the anger and the frustration of it all, you kind of go into the sad part of it where it's just like, 'Gosh, how come that didn't work out?'"

Miranda also opened up through her music. "If you want to hear my side of the story or my opinion of what happened, it's all on there," she told Billboard in July 2017 about her album The Weight of These Wings. "There's no mystery anymore — take from it what you will."

After years of back and forth and reports of a bitter feud, including an allegation that Blake "blindsided" her, it came out that Miranda apparently didn't even know why she was with Blake in the first place.

“Miranda doesn’t have many regrets. But now, she’s with the love of her life, looks back and thinks to herself, ‘What was I doing with Blake?’" an insider dished to InTouch in September 2020.

By that point, it seemed like both Miranda and Blake were in a much better place. It seemed to take a lot of healing and growth, but they each took solace in their new relationships.