Gwen Stefani’s Conservative Rebrand Shouldn’t Surprise You

Gwen Stefani goes MAGA? Duh!

If you’re shocked that Gwen Stefani has seemingly embraced conservatism—praising former Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s interview with actor Jonathan Roumie from the popular evangelical Christian series The Chosen in a post on X—you haven’t been paying attention. 

The singer has been telegraphing her right-leaning tendencies for decades. Marrying a conservative country music star? Promoting the evangelical Hallow app? And now the Tucker Carlson push? 

I clocked Gwen’s performative feminism back in 1998. Yes, folks, I was there in my Doc Martens and Delia’s baby tees, looking like a real-life Daria Morgendorffer, banging out a review for proto-blog In Music We Trust, which still has my snotty, 21-year-old voice out for public display nearly 30 years later because the internet never forgets.

For context, the grunge intelligentsia at the time swore that the poppy earworm “Just a Girl” was a deep, ironic nod to feminism cloaked in Spice Girls-style lyrics, mocking the “damsel in distress” trope prevalent in the pop culture zeitgeist.

The reality is that she’s always been less about actual feminism and more about whatever aesthetic best suits her current boyfriend.

To be fair, Gwen has never claimed to be a feminist. She’s claimed to be a tomboy, a Harajuku girl, and even Japanese, but she’s never claimed to be a feminist.

While the riot grrls were raising Hell and wearing the badge of feminism like a used tampon, Gwen was busy playing with her hair and makeup. Her “shredding” of Courtney Love was of the high school variety, recording “Hollaback Girl” in response to Love’s comments about Gwen compared to her riot grrrl contemporaries. And by her Return of Saturn era, she was making music videos begging Gavin Rossdale to marry her and not-so-subtly insinuating she’d tossed her birth control for a baby. 

But even if we disagree with her choices, feminism—real feminism—is about choice. It takes every type of woman to make the world go round. And if it makes our girl Gwen happy to be a mom and a wife in a proper Catholic marriage? God bless her. The real issue isn’t what Gwen chose—but that fans mistook her for something she never claimed to be.

Whether she was exoticizing South Asian culture while singing about heartbreak (and being called out for cultural appropriation in the process, something that very clearly bothers her), a British Lady of the Manor with sleek fashion and understated elegance, or a camo-wearing, cowboy-boot-strutting country girl peddling an image straight from a Bass Pro Shop catalog, Gwen Stefani remained a white woman from Orange County through it all. It is not her fault that fans thought otherwise.

Nowhere in there, though, did she ever claim to be a feminist, a liberal, or “down for the cause.” As disappointing as it is for her largely LGBTQIA+ fanbase to come to terms with her ideology, it is now more public and evident than ever before.

Gwen Stefani’s latest rebrand shouldn’t surprise anyone. She’s always been more about vibes than values.

When people show you who they are, believe them…the first time.