Before Gavin Rossdale, there was No Doubt bassist Tony Kanal, Gwen Stefani’s first true love. They were together for seven years, beginning when the “Rich Girl” was just a teenager, and she knew instantly that he was special. “I was so in love and obsessed with Tony Kanal, and he knows that … As soon as he opened the car door I was like, ‘I love him,'” Stefani told Howard Stern in a 2016 interview. She described their split as one of the most painful times of her life, but her heartbreak fueled No Doubt’s success. In fact, the band’s chart-topping hit “Don’t Speak” was directly inspired by Stefani and Kanal’s breakup.
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“Because it was so real, and we were living it, all that stuff came up in that song,” Kanal told Complex. “That’s our lives, and that’s what was happening to us at that time. It was a very, very intense period … and it was all put out there to share with everybody.” On a separate occasion, he told The Guardian that talking about the song in interviews and on tour was like reliving their breakup. Somehow though, the pair managed to stay friends. “Obviously, there’s a whole past we both have behind us … But at this point, we’re just two very good friends in a band,” Kanal shared with The Buffalo News in 1997. “Right now, all we want to do is get through this tour and make music.”
