Miranda Lambert and Blake Shelton have been divorced for over a decade, but she still remembers the "misery" she felt after they called time on their four-year marriage.
The country music star, 42, admitted that the aftermath of their 2015 split was "not a fun time," but she used her heartbreak to write "75" of her most personal songs at the time.
"I got divorced, and that sucks for anyone," the singer said on songwriter Ross Golan's And The Writer Is… podcast on Tuesday, October 27.
"Especially in the public eye, especially on tour, especially in the middle of a very public career — two of us — you know what I mean?" she continued. "It just was a really not fun time."
Miranda relocated to Nashville full-time after living with Blake in his hometown of Tishomingo, Oklahoma, immersing herself in songwriting and using her "misery" to pen her sixth studio album, The Weight of These Wings.
"[I] had moved back to Nashville full-time, and so I dove headfirst into songwriting. I had missed it," she said.
© FilmMagic"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."
The country star added: "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."
Miranda admitted that working on her new album post-divorce was "the opposite of" her previous album, Platinum, but the experience helped her grow as an artist.
© Getty Images"It was kind of magical," she explained, "because I really started growing my songwriting then. It wasn't writing towards a specific record or a sound or a feisty or whatever. It was, like, raw emotion.
"And I think I really grew as a vocalist and a songwriter," she continued, "because I spent so much of my downtime with a guitar in my hand for the first time, you know?... And it was worth it. It was worth laying it out there."
Miranda and Blake's divorce
© WireImageThe former couple first met during an onstage duet at CMT's 100 Greatest Duets Concert back in 2005, when Blake was still married to his first wife, Kaynette Gern.
They were together for 10 years and married for four before they announced their split in 2015. Miranda went on to marry Brendan McLoughlin in 2019, while Blake wed Gwen Stefani in July 2021.
© InstagramMiranda and Blake confirmed their split in a statement, writing at the time: "This is not the future we envisioned, and it is with heavy hearts that we move forward separately.
"We are real people, with real lives, with real family, friends and colleagues. Therefore, we kindly ask for privacy and compassion concerning this very personal matter."
What they've said about their divorce
© Getty ImagesAt an album launch party in 2016, Blake explained: "It's basically what it sounds like. At some point whether you go through a divorce or a breakup or whatever, once you get past the anger and the frustration of it all, you kind of go into the sad part of it where it's just like, 'Gosh, how come that didn't work out?'"
In a May 2022 interview with CBS News, Miranda admitted she wasn't prepared for the attention she received after their split. "I think you got to take it with a grain of salt and know that I'm a singer-songwriter, so luckily I can tell my whole truth. I will not lie in my music," she said.
