Gwen Stefani: 'I'm still heartbroken after my marriage breakdown'

Gwen Stefani's "dreams were crushed" when she split from Gavin Rossdale.

The 46-year-old singer has three children - 10-year-old Kingston, seven-year-old Zuma and two-year-old Apollo - with the Bush frontman, but Gwen filed for divorce in August 2015 after nearly 13 years of marriage, amid allegations of his infidelity.

While she has now moved on and is happily dating country singer Blake Shelton, Gwen insists it's going to take some time for her to emotionally rebuild after the breakdown of her marriage.

"I'm not in a different place yet. I'm still heartbroken," she told Rolling Stone magazine in a phone interview. "You can't have your family break up and still not be going through it a year later. I was just cleaning out a room in my house before I called you. It's devastating."

Gwen used her heartbreak as inspiration for her new album This Is What the Truth Feels Like, and likens the way she was feeling after her split to the way she felt when she penned No Doubt's 1995 record Tragic Kingdom - also written in the wake of a break-up.

"Even before I knew that my life would be forever changed and all my dreams would be crushed, I was quite desperate to make new music," she said.

Of Tragic Kingdom, Gwen added: "I didn't even know I could write music. And then my heart was ripped out, and, like, served back to me on a platter. And this album, I feel like it just fell out of the sky. It was a miracle."

Among the new tracks on Gwen's latest album is a collaboration with Blake - Go Ahead and Break My Heart. The emotive duet has a definite country feel about it, but pop princess Gwen insists she has always been open to embracing other genres with her music.

"Being on (U.S. TV talent show) The Voice helped open my mind to all kinds of music," she explained. "My parents loved folk and bluegrass – my first concert was Emmylou Harris. And at the end of the day, a song is a song. You can take a country song and make it into a dance track. It's all about how it's produced."

One thing Gwen isn't sure about when it comes to her future is whether she will have any more work with No Doubt coming up. The group hasn't released any new material since 2012's Push and Shove, and even that wasn't an enjoyable experience for the front woman.

"I was really drained and burned out when we recorded that album. And I had a lot of guilt: 'I have to do it.' That's not the right setting to make music," she continued. "There's some really great writing on that record. But the production felt really conflicted. It was sad how we all waited that long to put something out and it didn't get heard.

"I don't know what's going to happen with No Doubt. When Tony (No Doubt bassist Kanal) and I are connected creatively, it's magic. But I think we've grown apart as far as what kind of music we want to make."