Pharrell Williams opened Gwen Stefani’s eyes to hip-hop music. The two musical megastars are both friends and frequent collaborators, teaming up on hits like Can I Have It Like That and Shine. Pharrell also worked with Gwen’s band No Doubt, and it was the Happy singer who first showed Gwen how hip-hop could work for her.
“Pharrell is a prophet angel to me,” she beamed to Britain’s Hello! Magazine. “The first time we collaborated was for Hella Good with No Doubt. I was like: ‘Come on, guys, it’s hip-hop, and we should try this.’ So we wrote that song and everything changed for us. He had a little lull then came out with three of the biggest songs of the year. “My kids came home from school going: ‘We love this guy’.
I was like: ‘That’s my homie!’ I sent him a video of the kids doing Happy and he wrote back asking if I’d like to go to Coachella and do Hollaback Girl. He’s been amazing ever since.” That includes being there for the 46-year-old when she split with husband Gavin Rossdale in 2015. Gwen’s union with Bush frontman Gavin was thought of as one of the strongest in showbiz, but amid allegations he’s cheated with the couple’s nanny, the platinum blonde beauty decided to call it a day.
“Everybody knows what happened to me,” she sighed. “I got a divorce, which was not in the plan at all. I’ve said it before but it was a shocking, horrible, crazy explosion in my life. I forced myself to go into the studio even though I wanted to be in bed crying and do what you do when you life falls apart. (But) I was convinced I had to make something out of this. I wanted to do something creative and I was like: I can do this!”