“Gwen’s religion has always been extremely important to her, and Blake is completely supportive of this.”
Welcome to a special celebrity edition of “The Deacon’s Bench.”
Here’s something. you don’t see every day: Hollywood annulment news reported in the pages of Us Weekly.
Fresh start! Gwen Stefani‘s annulment from ex-husband Gavin Rossdale was “finally granted” by the Catholic church, a source exclusively tells Us Weekly.
“Gwen was told the decision was made by the Vatican tribunal,” the insider says five years after the pair called it quits in August 2015. “She will be receiving the notification in writing in the next few weeks, but it’s official.”
The annulment previously served as a barrier between Stefani, 51, and fiancé Blake Shelton tying the knot in a church.
“It was a huge relief for Gwen because she wanted to get married by her priest and have the marriage recognized by the Catholic church,” the source says.
And there’s this:
The former No Doubt front woman, 49, “began the formal process” to have her marriage to ex-husband Gavin Rossdale annulled by Catholic church officials “so she can marry Blake and have it be recognized by the church,” says the source. “Gwen’s religion has always been extremely important to her, and Blake is completely supportive of this.”
Us previously spotted the couple exiting church, as reported in an issue earlier this month.
I also found this item, regarding her first marriage:
In the year 2000, Fr. Drennen moved out to Los Angeles, California and stayed there for seven years. Living in “The Entertainment Capital of the World” he managed to meet or see a lot of people that most of the population only dreams of meeting. He has seen all manners of television and music stars, but one person that he knew better than any other celebrity is Gwen Stefani. It turns out that he married her to her husband in the Catholic Church!
I heard the story a few years ago while taking his class but wanted to find out more information, so I had the chance to interview Fr. Drennen and ask him a few questions about his experience with a rock star.
Q. How did you meet Gwen Stefani?
Fr. Drennen: She was a parishioner. She actually was a church goer. She did not go every Sunday but she would come enough that kids in the school would stop and say ‘did you see Gwen Stefani?’ I didn’t even know who Gwen Stefani was. She went to church some Sundays with her mother whenever she came to visit. Gwen lived two or three blocks from the Parish.
One day I got a call from her mother saying that her daughter is a celebrity and wants to get married with a Catholic priest. But she couldn’t get married without giving a name so eventually the manager called. Usually the couple comes to the rectory to talk but I was generous and offered to go to her house; mainly because I wanted to see her house. They had a really nice home. It was only four blocks. They did not have a ‘mansion’ but they had a very nice home.
She actually wanted to get married in an Anglican church because her husband is from England and is Anglican. His name is Gavin Rossdale from the band Bush. She wanted to have a whole separate Catholic wedding. After she kept asking me, I called the diocese and they said ‘sure why not’. So I was going to have a small wedding for her and her parents. That was all that was going to be there. But because things spread in Hollywood, word got out about an L.A. wedding and a ton of people wanted to come. So they had an outdoor wedding at her record producer’s house and it was the third wedding in a week! One Saturday they were in London, that Thursday they were at my parish in Los Angeles and then two days later they had a wedding. The last wedding is where I met all of the celebrities. They invited me to stay at the wedding and I sat at the table with them. I met his parents as well.
Actually two years later they called me up and said that they had a baby. They wanted me to do the Baptism. So I went back out to do it. They moved to J-Lo’s old house so I was happy to visit them there.
He has more to say. Read on.
