Beautiful rocker, Gwen Stefani, recently sat down with Elle magazine. Here are a few excerpts from the interview:
On Madonna:
"It's weird that we have all these similarities. Madonna's had us over to dinner and stuff. She's always been very nice to me…I remember telling Madonna I was going to do an 80s dance record and she rolled her eyes, because I think when you've lived through it like she did, she's like ‘Whatever.' But a lot of my influence came from her early work, like directly, like a Xerox."
On her middle class upbringing:
"The hotel maid walked by today, and she's really pretty and she probably comes from Poland. And here I am about to spend a lot of money on room service and I was thinking, I could have been a maid."
On what her fans say:
"People always say the same things. That I'm smaller than they expected and that I look better in real life. Which is kind of a back-handed compliment."
On her marriage:
"I mean, of course me and Gavin have problems, sometimes. Everyone does. We've been together for over 10 years. This is, like, the real deal."
* The Hollywood Gossip note: This is about nine years and 51 weeks longer than Aaron Carter has been with Kaci Brown.
On 8-month-old son Kingston:
"He's pretty rad…Kingston is so chill. He goes with me everywhere, 'cause I'm still nursing. He's been to every studio in L.A., New York, London. He lives up to his name â€" total Rasta boy. He gives me real balance. You can go 100 miles an hour, but you have to stop to hang out with him."
On her difficult pregnancy:
"I thought I was going to be one of those Mother Nature girls. I figured, I'll just squeeze it out, 'cause I'm really strong and I work out and stuff.
[However] I would be seriously crying before I went onstage. I didn't know how I was going to get through the tour, putting on nine costume changes on a stage in front of 12,000 people every night. And I didn't want people to know [I was pregnant]. I didn't want it to become the Gwen Circus Freak Show â€" ‘Watch it grow onstage.'"