Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani both performed at Monday night’s 2025 American Music Awards. Shelton made his AMAs debut with a run through his patriotic anthem “Stay Country or Die Tryin’,” and then returned later to introduce a medley from his wife Stefani. The No Doubt singer and solo star opened with her recent country-tinged Bouquet single “Swallow My Tears,” before moving on to quick runs through her 2006 hit “The Sweet Escape” and Her 2005 Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 hit “Hollaback Girl.”
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While both performances lit up the stage, attendees of the show at the Fontainebleau Las Vegas began posted afterwards that viewers at home may not have clocked that the sets were pre-taped, leaving the audience in the room staring at an empty stage for Shelton and watching a video of Stefani’s mini-set.
Though the broadcast did not note in real time that the performances were pre-taped, the practice is standard at major awards shows such as the AMAs. A source close to the production confirmed to Billboard that both artists pre-taped their performances before live audiences.
On Tuesday night (May 27), Shelton posted a response to the chatter on X, writing, “Just now seeing these stories about Gwen and I pretaping our performances for the AMA’s. We came and performed when the show asked us to.. Really nothing else to say,” adding a shrugging emoji to the post that was later re-posted by Stefani.
At press time Stefani had not offered any comment of her own, but she did appear to live-blog the show on Monday night, giving shout-outs to Benson Boone and Gloria Estefan in real time.
The American Music Awards are produced by Dick Clark Productions, which is owned by Penske Media Eldridge, a joint venture between Eldridge Industries and Billboard parent company Penske Media.
