Blake Shelton wasn’t talking The Voice contestants or Gwen Stefani, or even joking about Adam Levine’s hair–or lack thereof–on Friday. Instead, he was pausing to remember his late brother, who died in a car crash when Blake was just 14 years old. Friday was the 25th anniversary of Richie Shelton’s untimely passing, and Blake Shelton shared some thoughts on Twitter.
Wow… 25 years ago today we lost my brother Richie Shelton. He's still my hero going strong. Wish everyone could've known him.
— Blake Shelton (@blakeshelton) November 13, 2015
Blake Shelton and Miranda Lambert co-wrote a song about Blake’s late brother back in 2011. “Over You” earned Miranda Lambert the 2012 CMA Song of the Year award.
Shelton explained after her win that the two of them wrote the song while on a tour bus.
“We turned the TV off and we started talking about my brother,” he said. “She never met my brother. We started talking and the next thing you know, we started playing, the next thing you know, we started writing and we wrote the song that night.”
“I said, ‘I want you to record it because I don’t want to go there every night with my show, I want to be proud of that creation and stand back and smile but I don’t want to be in it again every night,’” he added.
Blake Shelton talked about his late brother in a 2014 interview.
“I remember picking up the phone to call him a week after he was dead to tell him something, and it was like…constantly a shock to me that he was dead,” he said. “No, that’s what my dad told me, too. He said, ‘Look, you will never ever get over this happening, you’re just gonna have to learn to get used to it,’ and he was absolutely right.”
During a Country Weekly interview–also in 2014–Blake Shelton shared some fond memories of Richie.
“His room was straight across the hallway from mine,” he said. “He’d be in there cranking up anything from Ted Nugent all the way to Waylon Jennings, Hank Williams Jr., Garth Brooks, Joan Jett. He loved ‘U Can’t Touch This’ by MC Hammer. I can’t tell you how many times I heard that damn song coming out of his room!”
“He was my hero,” he added. “I thought, ‘If he loves music that much, that’s what I want to do.’”
Blake Shelton’s hero is no doubt looking down on him with a great sense of pride for the musical legend he has become.
Personal loss, such as the one Blake suffered, often defines a person. Blake Shelton helped process his grief by utilizing his talents and pouring his heart into the thing he does best.
That certainly doesn’t mean he’s forgotten. Like his dad said, Blake Shelton has simply gotten used to it.