Miranda Lambert has opened up about why she didn't speak publicly about her breakup with Blake Shelton or his relationship with Gwen Stefani for years.
The country music star, who split from Shelton in 2015, avoided doing any interviews ahead of the release of her hit 2016 album, "The Weight of These Wings," a personal work that delved into her divorce.
"It was going to be hell, and I'd already been through hell,'' she told the music site HITS Daily Double about not wanting to do interviews. "It was hell putting it on paper, putting my words on paper. So I didn’t want to rehash.
"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."
She agreed to an interview after the album came out, and an unnamed reporter asked her about Stefani, whom Shelton has been dating for nearly three years.
" I was very publicly going through this thing, and there wasn’t an explanation to be given,'' she said. "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 (manager) Marion (Kraft), I just can’t do this."
Lambert preferred to let her music do the talking for her.
"What was in the music was real, and I wanted people to get it from that,'' she said. "Take from it what they would. Then if I needed to talk, I would. But I haven’t really. Until now."
Being a songwriter who is able to address her emotions through her creativity helped get her through the heartbreak, which she spoke about in the first part of the interview with HITS Daily Double.
She also spoke about coming out the other side of the heartbreak.
"I remember saying, 'I’m about to feel a lot. I’m ready to feel every bit of it, and I'm gonna use all of it,''' she said. "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."
Lambert is now focused on moving forward.
"I am who I am,'' she said in part one of the interview. "I am honest about being flawed. That's all I can be, you know?
"I cuss. I drink. I get divorced and get my heart broken. I break hearts. I can't do or be that anymore, or it'll drive me crazy. I won't be good anymore."
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