Blake Shelton And Gwen Stefani Performed At The 2025 American Music Awards
Earlier this month, Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani were both announced as performers at the American Music Awards, which were held on Memorial Day, May 26, at the Fontainebleau Las Vegas. Shelton was slated to perform a song off his new album, For Recreational Use Only, and Stefani was scheduled to perform a medley of hits plus a new song from her album, Bouquet.
Stefani has performed at the fan-voted award show plenty of times, but this marked Shelton’s first time performing, despite winning three AMAs throughout his career.
Shelton sang “Stay Country Or Die Tryin’,” which he released as a single the week before the performance. During the performance, he pointed to a red, white, and blue ribbon on his shirt to remind us all what Memorial Day was really about: remembering our fallen heroes.
Not long after he performed, he helped introduce his wife following a flashback clip of her accepting her 2005 award for Favorite Pop/Rock Female Artist.
“Now that’s a Hollaback flashback to 2005 and a winning artist who I really love,” he said to the camera. “Tonight she’s celebrating the 20th anniversary of that AMA win by performing two of her biggest hit and her newest hit. Let’s hear it for my one and only, the one and only, Gwen Stefani!”
See clips of Stefani’s performance below.
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Fans At The Live Show Were Confused When They Found Out Blake And Gwen’s Performances Were Pre-Taped
Fans who attended the American Music Awards took to social media to show their confusion over Shelton and Stefani’s performances, which were shown on a large screen on the stage.
TikTok user @savewithfelix posted a video with the caption, “When Blake Shelton is ‘performing’ at the AMA Awards but there’s no Blake Shelton in sight” written on the video.
@savewithfelix @Gwen Stefani performance was pre recorded as well 😩🫠 #amaawards #blakeshelton #gwenstefani #jlo ♬ original sound – Save with Felix
They also claimed Stefani’s performance was also pre-recorded and played on the same screen. TikTok user @alywinder shared a video proving this to be true.
@alywinder LIKE WHATTT… why would they say performing live when they aren’t even here?? 😭 #gwenstefani #ama #livetv #dissapointme #taylorswift ♬ original sound – Aly Winder
If you scroll through the comments on each video, or even take a look at fan reactions on X, Facebook, or Instagram, you will see lots of criticism over their pre-taped performances.
Blake Shelton Responds To Criticism Online About Pre-Taped Performances
It seems the criticism has reached the desk of Blake Shelton, because he took to X to address everyone’s comments.
“Just now seeing these stories about Gwen and I pretaping our performances for the AMA’s,” he wrote. “We came and performed when the show asked us to.. Really nothing else to say.”
He ended the post with a shrugging emoji.
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. 🤷♂️
— Blake Shelton (@blakeshelton) May 28, 2025
It’s not super uncommon for award shows to include pre-taped performances in their live broadcast, but most of the time it is advertised as such. This time, fans were more upset because they were led to believe Blake and Gwen’s performances were live. Although one could argue, their performances were live, since they did have a live audience, it just wasn’t during the live broadcast.
Either way, we think Shelton’s performance was one of the best of the night and he was a great representation of country music at an all-genre award show. Watch his performance below.