9 things to know about Blake Shelton’s first marriage

High school sweethearts

Blake Shelton and Kaynette Williams were high school sweethearts, but they met when they were just 15 years old.Even before they started dating (which was six years later), Shelton had the ability to make Williams very happy.”He was 15 when I met him, and I was just out of high school,” Williams told Country Weekly. “Even before I was dating him, I always thought he was just the funniest person. You can’t help but have a good time and laugh around him.”

She was “the one”

The couple married in November 2003, and Shelton was convinced that Williams was “the one.”

Speaking during an interview with Country Weekly a month after his wedding, he said, “I knew Kaynette was the one just because I can’t explain it. I can’t say it’s because we get along or because of the way she looks. It’s just something I feel — you know what I mean? It’s nothing more than just knowing you’re right.”

Road manager

But Williams wasn’t just Shelton’s wife. She was reportedly also his road manager and helped get his fledgling career started.

It was a tiny wedding

When it came to their wedding (which took place in Gatlinburg, Tennessee), the couple chose to keep it simple with only Shelton, Williams, the man who married them and a photographer.Shelton told Country Weekly that this decision was important for him and his then-wife because “it was totally something that we wanted to do — just she and I. Our whole lives are always in the public eye, plus we live on a bus with 10 other people. There’s just always people around. We never have time for us, so it seemed like the perfect way to do this. It was a moment we would always share, knowing it was just the two of us.”

Their marriage lasted 3 years

Shelton and Williams officially divorced in 2006, one year after he sung the duet “You’re the Reason God Made Oklahoma” at the CMT 100 Greatest Duets concert with Miranda Lambert.

According to radio station The Bulls 100.3, in Williams’ divorce filings she notes “inappropriate marital misconduct” as the main reason for the dissolution of their relationship.

Falling in love with Miranda Lambert

Shelton has also admitted that he was falling in love with Lambert while he was still a married man.

During an interview with Hoda Kotb on Dateline, Shelton said, “I was a married guy, you know? Standing up there and singing with somebody and going, ‘Man, this shouldn’t be happening.’ Looking back on that, I was falling in love with her, right there on stage.”

Tough decisions

However, divorcing Williams was not a decision that Shelton took lightly.

In 2014, Shelton explained during an interview with CBS’ 60 Minutes, “That was easily the toughest thing that I’ve, you know, been through. I put my divorce up there with my brother’s death and that was a tough, tough call to make.”

Oklahoma wasn’t big enough

According to Bustle, in 2011, Williams told the National Enquirer that after her divorce from Shelton, she moved back home, only to find that he and Lambert soon moved to a neighboring city. “After Blake and I split up, I moved from Tennessee back to Oklahoma,” Williams reportedly told the publication. “But then Blake and Miranda moved back there to a neighboring town, and it just felt like Oklahoma wasn’t big enough for all of us.”

Not ready

But perhaps the most revealing part about Shelton’s marriage is that, after the divorce, he told People magazine in 2007, “I just really don’t think I was ready to be a husband.”