Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani made appearances during the American Music Awards telecast — but fans who witnessed the show live say they didn’t get to see the music couple perform. In several TikToks posted on Monday, fans wrote that they felt “lied to” after being shown pre-recorded videos of the couple’s performances onscreen during the event.
During the telecast, Blake Shelton took the stage first to perform “Stay Country or Die Tryin,” and later “returned” to introduce his wife, Gwen Stefani. She performed a medley of her hits “The Sweet Escape” and “Hollaback Girl” along with a recent single, “Swallow My Tears.”
One fan shared a video of her view from the seats at the Fontainebleau that showed Stefani’s performance onstage before panning to her to say, “She’s not here.” Over the video, the fan wrote, “We’ve been lied to,” adding in the caption: “Why would they say performing live when they aren’t even here??”
Another fan shared a video of Shelton’s performance being displayed onscreen while a different band, seemingly for Lainey Wilson, set up onstage. “When Blake Shelton is ‘performing’ at the AMA Awards but there is no Shelton in sight,” the attendee wrote.
Reps for Blake Shelton, Gwen Stefani, and the AMAs did not immediately respond to Rolling Stone‘s request for comment.
Getty Images photos for the performances did not list the date for when they were recorded, but instead captioned the photos as “image released on May 26, 2025.”
Stefani may not have been there in person for the show, but she seemed to be live-tweeting during several of the performances. “Ummm?!! @bensonboone that was incredible!” she wrote during the show. “We love u @GloriaEstefan, one of the sweetest humans I’ve had the honor to meet,” she said during Estefan’s performance.
Many of the award winners appeared via pre-recorded videos during the performance, including Billie Eilish, who won seven awards, including Artist of the Year, Album of the Year, and Song of the Year. Of the Artist of the Year nominees, only SZA was present at the awards show.
