Gwen Stefani is a pop icon. Since first rising to fame during the mid ’90s with her band No Doubt, people have been obsessed with the platinum blonde. She’s become a successful solo singer, a fashion designer and a coach on The Voice, and even after all these years, her star still continues to rise. It’s her birthday, so get to know the singer-songwriter better with these 10 things you didn’t know about her:
9. Living at Home
Gwen lived in her parent’s house until she was 25. “When I started dating Gavin, I was still at my parents’ house. Yeah, it’s a little weird,” she said.
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8. Hair Maintenance
Gwen is famous for her platinum locks and, surprisingly, no one has ever seen her with roots. This is because she follows Marilyn Monroe’s example. “Well, I heard she did hers with a Q-tip every 10 days, so I try to follow Marilyn’s rule,” she told Harper’s Bazaar.
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7. Passive
While many of us might believe that Gwen is an extrovert because of her onstage persona, according to her, she is “passive.” “I was never a rebel,” she said.
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6. Roman Catholic
She was raised in a Roman Catholic household and her parents were rather strict. When Gavin Rossdale proposed to Gwen, he got her father’s permission beforehand.
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5. Dreaming Big…or Not
When she was in high school, she dreamed of being a homemaker like her mother. “All I wanted to ever do was get married and have babies, have a house,” she told the Washington Post.
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4. Her Name
Her parents named her after a stewardess in the 1968 novel Airport. Her middle name, Renee, came from The Four Tops’ 1968 cover of The Left Banke’s 1966 song “Walk Away Renee.”
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3. Learning Disability
Gwen had a lot of difficulty at school because of her dyslexia. “School was just really hard for me. I didn’t want to fail. I wanted to be smart! But I was really dreaming, like drawing my boyfriend’s name on my notebooks. It was such a disaster. It’s so sad! It makes me sad when I think about it. I still have nightmares about tests,” she told Elle.
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2. Few Boyfriends
She’s only dated three guys in her entire ife: Tony Kanal, her bandmate from No Doubt; Gavin Rossdale, her former husband; and now Blake Shelton.
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1. Red Lips
She started rocking red lips in high school when her grandmother gave her a crimson lipstick. “I remember sitting in my ghetto, beat-up Honda Prelude and putting on that lipstick in the rearview mirror and being like, ‘Uh-huh, I like that. That’s the sh-t right there.’ I never stopped after that,” she said.