Not wasting any time! Miranda Lambert and Brendan McLoughlin tied the knot in January 2019 after a whirlwind two-and-a-half-month courtship. The nuptials came amid turmoil in the police officer’s personal life stemming from past relationships.
Before the country singer’s wedding to McLoughlin, she was married to Blake Shelton from May 2011 to July 2015. News of his ex-wife’s second marriage came as a shock to the Voice coach. “Blake found [out] about the wedding at the same time as everyone else did,” a source told Us Weekly in February 2019, shortly after Lambert announced her new relationship status.
Shelton, who has since moved on with Gwen Stefani, mentioned to the No Doubt singer that “the timing of Miranda’s announcement of the marriage was certainly curious,” according to an insider. However, “just because Miranda got married in a quickie situation doesn’t change anything for Gwen and Blake.”
McLoughlin has a complicated past too. The New York City police officer got another woman pregnant while cheating on his fiancée, Jackie Bruno, his ex’s mother, Carol Bruno, claimed in February 2019. “[Brendan] tried to deny it and then begged her to stay with him,” she told Us at the time. “She was only going [abroad] for a few months to play [soccer], he was begging her to marry him before she left, even though he knew the girl was pregnant.”
McLoughlin welcomed a son with Kaihla Rettinger in November 2018, days after he met Lambert for the first time.
The Grammy winner previously made headlines for getting close to musician Evan Felker while she was still in a relationship with Anderson East. Two weeks after Lambert split from East in April 2018, Us confirmed that she had moved on with Felker, who was still married to Staci Felker at the time. The duo divorced in August 2018 but later reconciled, welcoming their first child in 2021.
Lambert has a history of moving fast in relationships, but she explained that her pace with McLoughlin was actually beneficial for the duo.
“We didn’t date very long before we got married. And so we sort of got to just really, really, really get to know each other,” she said during a SiriusXM interview in February 2021. “It was just us two with no distraction, at my farm outside of Nashville. And so I was really thankful for it because it made us really strong.”
Scroll to relive Lambert and McLoughlin’s hasty romance, from cheating allegations to a quickie wedding.