Gwen Stefani Opens Up About Protecting Her Kids While Penning Her New Album

Life has been a whirlwind for Gwen Stefani lately—a split from husband Gavin Rossdale, a crazy-in-love relationship with country star Blake Shelton, and releasing her first solo album in more than a decade this week—but just because she's a celebrity doesn't make all of this change easy. In fact, Stefani admitted to Sunday Style magazine that the song-writing process for This Is What The Truth Feels Like was therapeutic: "The only thing that I could do to save myself was to go in and write these songs," she said. "The album was written over a period of time where so much change was happening in my life and it went from such tragedy to such bliss. It's all captured in the music."

Although Stefani has found happiness now, her biggest concern was always about making sure she put her three sons with Rossdale (Kingston, Zuma, and Apollo) first, and that also meant sheltering them a bit. "It's impossible to explain how hard it was, to get into a room with people you don't know—who don't know your story—and you can't say what's going on," Stefani told Sunday Style. "I needed to protect the children." Seems this songstress is topping the charts as a first-class mom as well.