My Story

Gwen Renée Stefani was born on October 3, 1969, in Fullerton, California, and raised Catholic in nearby Anaheim. She was named after a stewardess in the 1968 novel Airport, and her middle name, Renée, comes from the Four Tops' 1967 version of the Left Banke's 1966 song "Walk Away Renée". Her father Dennis Stefani is Italian American and worked as a Yamaha marketing executive. Her mother Patti (née Flynn) is Irish-American and worked as an accountant before becoming a homemaker. Stefani's parents were fans of folk music and exposed her to music by artists like Bob Dylan and Emmylou Harris. Stefani has two younger siblings, Jill and Todd, and an older brother, Eric. Before leaving No Doubt to pursue an animation career on The Simpsons, Eric was the band's keyboardist.

Stefani began dating her bandmate Tony Kanal soon after he joined the band. She stated that she was heavily invested in that relationship, saying in 2005, "...all I ever did was look at Tony and pray that God would let me have a baby with him." The band almost split up when Kanal ended the relationship.

Stefani met Bush lead singer and guitarist Gavin Rossdale in 1995 when No Doubt and Bush performed at a holiday concert for radio station KROQ. They married on September 14, 2002, at St Paul's, Covent Garden in London. A second wedding was held in Los Angeles two weeks later. Stefani has three sons with Rossdale, Kingston James McGregor Rossdale born on May 26, 2006, Zuma Nesta Rock Rossdale born on August 21, 2008, and Apollo Bowie Flynn Rossdale on February 28, 2014. On August 3, 2015, Stefani filed for divorce from Rossdale, citing "irreconcilable differences". Their divorce was finalized on April 8, 2016, in which Rossdale agreed to the "unequal split" of their assets.

Stefani announced her relationship with Blake Shelton, country music artist and The Voice co-star, in November 2015. The couple announced their engagement on October 27, 2020, and married at a chapel on July 3, 2021, at Shelton's Oklahoma ranch.

Stefani identifies as a Roman Catholic.

Guinevere was, according to Arthurian legend, an early-medieval queen of Great Britain and the wife of King Arthur. First mentioned in literature in the early 12th century, nearly 700 years after the purported times of Arthur, Guinevere has since been portrayed as everything from a fatally flawed, villainous, and opportunistic traitor to a noble and virtuous lady. The variably told motif of abduction of Guinevere, or of her being rescued from some other peril, features recurrently and prominently in many versions of the legend.

The following narrative is largely based on the Lancelot-Grail (Vulgate) prose cycle and, consequently, Le Morte d'Arthur as abridged by Thomas Malory with some of his changes. It tells the story of the forbidden romance of Sir Lancelot and Queen Guinevere, initially in accordance to the courtly love conventions still popular in the early 13th-century France. However, their affair was soon afterwards directly condemned as sinful, especially in the Post-Vulgate Cycle retelling. Guinevere's role in their relationship in the Vulgate Lancelot is that of Lancelot's "female lord", just as the Lady of the Lake is his "female master". Regarding her characterisation by Malory, she has been described by modern critics as "jealous, unreasonable, possessive, and headstrong," at least through most of the work before the final book, and some of these traits may be related to her political qualities and actions.

In Geoffrey's Historia, Arthur leaves her as a regent in the care of his nephew Modredus (Mordred) when he crosses over to Europe to go to war with the Roman leader Lucius Tiberius. While her husband is absent, Guinevere is seduced to betray Arthur and marry Mordredus ("in violation of her first marriage, had wickedly married him"), who declares himself king and takes Arthur's throne. Consequently, Arthur returns to Britain and fights Modredus at the fatal Battle of Camlann. Wace's chronicle Roman de Brut (Geste des Bretons) makes Mordred's love for Guinevere the very motive of his rebellion. In the later romance Alliterative Morte Arthure, Guinevere is a traitoress who secretly plots her husband's death while pretending to be his devoted and caring wife.

Guinevere is childless in most stories. The few exceptions to that include Arthur's son named Loholt or Ilinot in Perlesvaus and Parzival (first mentioned in Erec and Enide). In the Alliterative Morte Arthure, Guinevere willingly becomes Mordred's consort and bears him two sons, although the dying Arthur commands her and Mordred's infant children to be secretly killed and their bodies tossed into the sea (Guinevere herself, who unlike Mordred seems to show little care for the safety of their children, is spared and forgiven by Arthur). There are mentions of Arthur's sons in the Welsh Triads, though their exact parentage is not clear. The possibly medieval tale of King Arthur and King Cornwall has the latter having a daughter with Guinevere. Besides the issue of her biological children, or lack thereof, Guinevere also raises the illegitimate daughter of Sagramore and Senehaut in the Livre d'Artus.