Miranda Lambert Reflects On Navigating Her 'Misery' Amid Her Divorce From Ex-Husband Blake Shelton

Miranda Lambert reflected on her 2015 divorce from fellow country star Blake Shelton, and how she channeled her "misery" into songwriting.

Lambert, 42, spoke about the music spanning her two-decade career during an appearance on And The Writer Is…with Ross Golan. During the conversation on the podcast, the most-awarded artist in Academy of Country Music history revealed how many songs she wrote in the aftermath of her split from Shelton, 50.

"I got divorced and that sucks for anyone. Especially in the public eye, especially on tour, especially in the middle of a very public career... It just was a really not fun time. And I, in the meantime, had moved back to Nashville full-time, and so I dove headfirst into songwriting. I had missed it," Lambert said. She and then-husband Shelton primarily lived in his Oklahoma hometown during their marriage. "And when I moved back in 2015, I gathered up all of my friends and relationships from, you know, all of the previous years and just used it, used the misery. I used the staying out too late at honky-tonks. I used what I was living and my friends went on that journey with me - friends being songwriters - and I think I wrote 75 songs in like, a year. I mean, in like, the first four months I moved back."

Lambert and Shelton got married in May 2011. They finalized their divorce in July 2015, ending the relationship after about a decade together and four years of marriage. Since then, Lambert said "I do" to former New York Police Department officer Brendan McLoughlin, whom she met while he was working security during her appearance on Good Morning America in 2018. They've been married since January 2019. Shelton met Gwen Stefani when they both served as coaches on The Voice. The two artists began dating in late 2015, and tied the knot in July 2021.

Lambert released her first album after her divorce from Shelton, The Weight of These Wings, in 2016. She said on And The Writer Is…with Ross Golan that she "really started growing my songwriting then [in the aftermath of the divorce]. …It was like raw emotion." Lambert said because of her growth as an artist, "it was worth laying it out there."

Throughout the podcast, Lambert also spoke about writing Ella Langley 's "Choosin' Texas," her retro collaboration with Chris Stapleton, stories behind "Gunpowder & Lead," "Mama's Broken Heart," teaming up with Carrie Underwood on "Somethin' Bad," and more. Find the full episode on iHeartRadio here.